


little time to please the living

by amitye



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Scheming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27006610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amitye/pseuds/amitye
Summary: The Tyrells succeed in their plan of marrying Sansa to Loras, saving her for an unwanted marriage and securing one of the most desired matches in Westeros. But how will their relationship develop, around the secrets and tragedies brought on by the Five Kings' War?
Relationships: Sansa Stark & Loras Tyrell, Sansa Stark/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25
Collections: Fic In A Box





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChronicBookworm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChronicBookworm/gifts).



> This fic is mostly book based, but will draw on some show elements, such as Loras being Mace's only son, Sansa being 14 going on 15 rather than 12 going on 13 on her wedding night, and Sansa and Margaery's closer friendship

"Oh, Crone, is the weather dreadful these days." 

Sansa complained softly, raising the corner of her eye to sneak a look at the seamstress' face in the mirror. The young Mistress Lila was usually friendly and chatty with her, but a little moody and Sansa wasn't good at telling if she was listening to her. 

Still, she was determined to become more intimate with her - she knew she couldn't trust her maids, but a trader whose life didn't depend on the Queen's whims might be more dependable, and Margaery had been so insistent of how important to her it was to bring her own seamstresses from Highgarden - essential, when silks and lace where a lady's best weapons. Sansa had giggled when Margaery said that, mostly because together with her poor septa's saying that courtesy was a lady's armor, it painted in her mind the picture of a very unusual knight indeed, but those were girlish silliness that she might share with Jeyne Poole, not with an older and more worldly girl set to be queen, so she limited herself to taking stock of her advice. 

She tried again. “The streets must be in such a state. Do you have any trouble coming here?”

The seamstress noticed her this time, only to shrug. “Oh, the mud puddles aren’t the worst thing on these streets, m’lady. But it does get it awfully longer when I have to walk around them.”

“I imagine!” She chirped. “Poor thing, it must take your whole day.” A sudden detail came back to her mind. “Who are you leaving your baby with, when you come here for all these hours?”

At those words, the seamstress straightened up with pride. “Oh, I just leave her with the nurse a bit longer. She’s the first child in the family to go to one, and there’s no harm in taking a little avantage.” 

Sansa was confused for a few moments, wondering what was the meaning behind those words, but she realized from the smile on Mistress Lila’s face that, to the commoners of King’s Landing, not having to nurse her own child was a luxury that they couldn’t even imagine - before she had secured a position working for the Queen, of course.

“That is wonderful!” She clapped her hands. “I wanted to tell you you could bring her here as you work, if you needed, but I suppose you wouldn’t want her here to distract you. You know, I would feel so guilty keeping you away from your baby girl, and yet I’m sorry, but I could have no other seamstress. Your visits are the only thing that brightens my day...in this foul weather, of course.”

She thought that was a bit too enthusiastic - more like a young lady half-crazy with her eight moon of her first pregnancy, or a small child like Arya, than a maiden of poise and grace, but Mistress Marella didn’t seem to mind. “You flatter me, m’lady, but I have to say I can’t fault you. This indeed is the finest stuff I have ever sown.” She smirked as she began to unlace the bodice of her half-formed new dress. “And this without the thing I’m having made for you at home - that is going to brighten your day alright.”

Sansa’s heart skipped a beat, and her chest squeezed even tighter with the memory of how only a year ago, a surprise would have filled her with delight and not fear and uneasiness.  
“Oh, what is this you’re talking about? Why have you not brought it here to try on?” She asked, trying to keep her voice as airy and bird-like as she could.  
9  
“There’s just no need for you to try it on. I have your measurement for… where it laces, and I don’t need any other.” 

Sansa quickly tried to breathe. There were not many garments this description could fit - the court fashion leaned to gowns far too tight for any measurements to be improvised, and she knew she was growing, meaning the size and shape of her body were odd, not predictable on the basis of the experience the seamstress had with grown ladies. “Is- is it trimmed with vair?” She dared, looking up timidly, bracing herself for the consequences of what it would mean, if it was.

The seamstress narrowed her eyes. “Yes, white vair. Why?"

She swallowed, praying her little-bird-voice would not betray her. “Oh, furs make me break out dreadfully sometimes! It makes me look like a toad, I swear, a red, fat toad. Is there not a chance I could try this on, just to see if the fur is fine enough it doesn’t bother me? I would be so grateful to you!”

She toyed not too discreetly with the gold trout brooch she had lying on her vanity. She had no coin of her own, but she hoped this would suffice. She could barely breathe as Lila thought this through, suddenly paralyzed by terror that she might have enough highborn clients to afford to use a sample of fur for that and that all her efforts would be moot.

“Well, I suppose it would not do for you to be scratching yourself the whole time, m’lady,” she resolved. “We can have an extra fitting just for the two of us tomorrow. But poor thing, this must have been an awful problem for you up North, wasn’t it?”

She dug her fingers in her thighs, swallowing down the surge of bitter guilt together with her tears, forcing her lips to not twist away from their smile. “I suppose I knew I was more suited to the South all along.”

***

Sansa stood with her hands over her eyes closed in front of the vanity, counting seconds to calm down.  
Mistress Lila tied two silken laces around her throat, and a disguised peek confirmed they were ivory white. _Breathe. You’ve prepared for this. It won’t go like the mattress._

“Well, does it itch?”

“Not at all!” She giggled, half for the deception, half with nerves. “I can feel this is very fine fur. It’s so soft.”

She twirled, but at the moment of acting her nerves failed her, and she twirled again, in the opposite direction, clapping her hands like an overexcited child to make this all sound more believable. _Either this now, ar a dagger on your wedding bed._

She jutted her hand out in a graceless movement that would have been trained out of her by age four, striking the candle she had lit on the vanity, and dropping it into the artistic arranged cloud of dried flowers and old embroidery scraps: the pile fell on the floor, as she had hoped, and she shrieked and dashed out the door into her privy, pressing her back against the door for good measure. Lila’s curses, far more annoyed than frightened, told her she needed to be fast, and a quick look at the cloak showed there was no need for hesitation.

The silver wolf raced on the white damask like an omen of death more than a memory of home, and the frame of pearls looked like the tears that were starting to fall on her cheeks. It wouldn’t be a problem - she felt she had done nothing but cry in so long, and no one in King’s Landing seemed to find it remarkable at all. She pulled her eating dagger from her shift and hacked at the cloth-of-silver - would embroidery have been too delicate for the Lannisters’ taste? - stuffing the wolf into her shift, where her bosom would prevent it from showing.

She prayed this would delay things enough. With a great, shuddering cry she folded the cloak clumsily to hide her theft and threw the door open, mumbling an apology, eyes downcast.

“I’m sorry-”  
The seamstress didn’t take the cloak from her hands _brusquely,_ but in a way that showed she clearly wished she could. 

Sansa couldn’t blame her, could she? She’d gone out of her way to fraternize only to show immediately she really didn’t think much of leaving her to the fire at all. It hurt, somewhere within her, but the part of her that cared of what people thought of her felt like it had been wrenched away from the rest of her body, only skin holding it in place. She hoped she wouldn’t get in trouble for whatever delay it was - and that it would be less trouble than what she would get for revealing she had done an extra fitting without permission from the Queen, and that she was aware of it, and thinking about this made her feel so disgusted and empty she spent the best part of the morning curled on herself, too numb to even begin thinking about the wedding.

After noon, she forced herself to put her thoughts in motion. Her first, confused thoughts went to Joffrey, but that could not be - his betrothal to Margaery had been announced to the whole court, there was nothing for them to gain for her hand but her claim to Winterfell.

For a moment she entertained the thought they might marry her off to Theon - she hated herself for the flash of relief the idea of going home to someone she knew gave her, before she remembered what he had done and why, exactly, they would see marrying her off to Theon as an useful alliance. But would they? She had read about the Greyjoy Rebellion. She doubted the Lannisters considered Theon capable of holding onto anything for longer than a moon’s turn.

They would marry her to a Lannister, that was the only choice. She would have to show him the way into her own home, let him take her in her parents’ bed. She closed her eyes and imagined flinging herself out of the window over and over, until the thought started to feel scary rather than inviting. About the tenth time the trick began to work, a little longer than usual, but well enough: but clinging to hope was harder than clinging to life, and she had no tricks for it. 

A septon was not supposed to marry a bride dragged before him against her will. She could threaten to end her own life on the steps of the sept - that would have to spur someone to action, wouldn’t it? The court was full of gallant knights. But so many of them were the queen’s knights, and they might simply drag her to a cell to starve until she was too weak to kick up any fuss. She might draw the attention of the septons and septas called for the ceremony, pleading for the sacred dignity of the rite of marriage and the grievous insult to the Maiden, weeping in her virginal white and silver gown. That was more inviting, and yet she knew the mercy more accessible to her was being shipped off to a motherhouse to receive her vows and be allowed protection to her maidenhead. She’d be sequestered from her family forever, never to marry or have children, and was a whole life of that truly easier to endure than a few moons in a Lannister’s bed until Robb came to save her? And she had faith in Robb, she had to try to have faith in Robb. 

Yes, there was only one way. She picked the wolf out of her bodice and smoothed it up against the wall, hands trembling. It would have to be good enough evidence.

She waited a bit longer - for the sky to darken a bit and the guard to change - then dressed herself as properly as she could muster and sneaked down the hallway, headed to Margaery’s solar.

She made up a gracious excuse for the maid who opened the door and a more detailed one for the Tyrell cousin she met on the way, but when she saw Margaery she could only fling herself into her arms, struggling not to sob as she breathed in the scent of rosewater in her hair and strawberry on her lips. She half-wondered how something that did so far the opposite of reminding her of home could be so comforting, as Margery cooed softly and pushed her tangled hair away from her face - a very good picture of a maid in distress, if not the picture she would have most liked to show in front of her friend.  
“Sansa, poor Sansa, what’s wrong? Talk to me, sweetling.”

She pulled herself away and rubbed her eyes, trying to speak, but shame overwhelmed her. She was suddenly aware of Lady Olenna and Ser Loras’s presence and how they must be staring at her, although she didn’t dare turn around to see.

She curtsied as deeply as her shaky legs would take her, then held out the cloth-of-silver onto Margaery’s hands - the Queen of Thorn bending with a young girls’ agility to see what she was holding. “I’ve been informed I’m going to be married soon,” she said, working very hard to keep some dignity to her voice.

“What?” Loras jumped up. “To who?” 

“Explain this from the beginning, child, who is it who’s marrying you off?” Lady Olenna said.  
Margaery only clapped a hand over her mouth in horror, wrapping her other arm around her waist to pull her close.

She took a deep breath. “The Queen, most likely. She’s the one who wants me married, I mean. I don’t know to whom she’d want to marry me, or why, when I’m a traitor’s daughter worth nothing, but she’s having new special clothes made for me, and why would she want to give me a cloak with my house’s arms if not to humiliate me?”

“She wants her own people to have Winterfell after your brother’s death. She’ll have you marry some Lannister.” Margaery shook her head. “We need to do something.”

Sansa wished she had said that - it had felt for some reason rude to say it out loud, but she hated that Margaery now had every reason to think her stupid for not realizing something so obvious. She choked down a sob and hid her face in her neck. 

“Likely the Imp.” Olenna said, and brought a new fresh horror. The Queen’s little brother had been so kind to her! Could she truly never trust anyone? She fell on her knees.

“Please, Margaery, if I have been your friend at all, do not let them marry me to a Lannister, Imp or not. Not to the people who murdered my father. I will be loyal to you forever, I will accept any fate, but please, they say it’s a Queen’s duty to guide her husband on the path to mercy. Do not allow such cruelty in your reign when it has just begun, please-”

“If you didn’t lie to us, not even Good Queen Alysanne could guide the wretched lad on the path to mercy.” Olenna interrupted her, waving off her pleads. “We are going to have to deal with this on our own, as women always do. I don’t believe your father will object to rushing our plans somewhat, will he, Loras?”

“I’m sure he’ll understand the seriousness of the situation.”  
Margaery nodded. “After all, a Queen’s duty is also to reconcile the King with his enemies, and what better way…”

For a moment Sansa was swept away by the way they talked, one over the other and yet seemingly understanding each other perfectly, as musical instruments coming together to perfection. Her heart ached with longing, although she was fairly sure with none of her siblings she had ever achieved such perfect harmony. 

Then Loras was on his knees before her, offering his handkerchief to wipe her tears, and the world seemed to stop. “My lady,” he whispered, taking her hand. “I have yearned for this for a long time, although I hoped to wait until the end of your mourning, but this desperate situation leaves no time to wait for anyone or anything. If it pleases you, I would take you as my bride, Lady Sansa, and take you to rule Highgarden with me, under my protection against those who wish you harm. Might you be happy with this? Can I hope to be worthy of being your husband?”

Sansa pressed her hand over her mouth, struggling to think straight. The thought of being Ser Loras’ wife felt like a dream, his touch made her skin tingle, his words were straight out of a song. Still, his voice had hardly trembled in yearning as he spoke and he was obviously sure of what she would answer in a way that would have irritated her, if it wasn’t for the very evident reality that she had no choice. Judging from their first meeting, he was not marrying her for love or her own merits any more than a Lannister would.

But did it matter? She would love him, at any rate, and he might grow to love her. Her parents’ marriage had hardly been any more romantic than this, and yet no one could question how much they loved each other now - how much they had loved each other. She would be away from the worst of the war, away from the Queen and Joffrey and never to see King’s Landing’s accursed towers again. And marrying to a Lannister would make her a traitor to her family and little more than a slave, while having some influence in the Queen’s own family-

“Sansa, we would be sisters.” Margaery added gently, and she realized she had been frozen thinking for too long. “And even if my dear betrothed is nasty, he remains a fifteen year old boy I can influence easily enough to be merciful to your brother, as long as Stannis is our common enemy. It’s the best we can hope for, sweetling.”

“Yes, yes. I am happy to accept your proposal, ser Loras.” She rose and curtsied. “I thank you for your kindness. I will never forget it.”

Margaery pulled in a hug that left her breathless, crying with joy. Lady Olenna clapped at her in a way she couldn’t help her but find mean-spirited, but she didn’t pay her any mind. She would be her grandmother too soon enough, and she had never had a grandmother. 

“Good riddance, child. Now we’re done with this little mummers’ show, let’s talk about plans.”

***

Fleeing from King’s Landing was easier than expected, far easier than even her secret meeting with Dontos had been.

She had a day to pack as much as she could in her riding sack and sneak something else to Margaery to be hidden in her grandmother’s package. Then a discreet invitation to ride together was delivered to her, and while she and Margaery braided flowers in each others’ hair in a meadow well out of the city, the wheelhouse meant to bring Lady Olenna back to Highgarden came to collect her. She wept in Margaery’s arms while the Queen of Thorns called at her to make it quick and Loras laughed and tried to shut her down, and Margaery took off her necklace and clasped it around her neck, saying if she couldn’t see her become a woman then she should at least give her something to remember her by on her wedding day.

“Your wise advice has made me a woman long before your brother will,” she joked, and they both bent down laughing when they realized how it sounded.

The wheelhouse ride was much more taxing. Sansa hadn’t had the time to think about it, but the secrecy of their plans meant they could not stop longer than short breaks to relieve themselves and get food and water, and sleeping curled up on her seat left her exhausted. She had hoped to take advantage of the journey to know her betrothed better, but Loras spent most of the time riding, only coming back to the wheelhouse when she was sleeping, and her time was divided between embroidery and listening to Olenna’s dreadful stories, which, while much more sophisticated and realistic than old Nan’s, still mingled and meddled with one another in her nightmares.

When they finally reached Highgarden, coming to the stable through a long line of blinding green meadows and shimmering fountains, she tried to make up for it trying to ask Loras for a walk in the gardens, but Olenna quickly corralled them each to a separate wing of the castle.

“It is bad luck for a bride and groom to talk on their wedding day.”

“Surely we are not to be married today, my lady?” Sansa asked timidly, but Olenna had seemingly set up everything to be done and over with within a full progress of the sun, and she was quickly sent to take her beauty nap before the preparations started.

There was no time for a wedding dress to be custom-made for her, so she wore the one Lady Olenna had worn to her own wedding, nearly fifty years past. It was, technically, white silk like the one that had been made for her in King’s Landing, but covered in such an intricate mess of green and burgundy-red vines the color could be hardly seen underneath. It made her think a little of weirwood, when she looked at it in the right half-light. 

The neckline was terribly old-fashioned, cut square around the collarbones instead of the deep V-s (veiled with lace to preserve her modesty) she had worn in King’s Landing, the waist fell too low and the heavy golden cord belt she had wrapped around it reached to the floor, with the risk of tripping over the tassels. As for the sleeves, Sansa had never seen anything like that altogether: the sleeves on the dress were cut right under the shoulder, puffed and slashed with cloth-of gold, and two wholly separate sleeves (thin and knuckle-length rather than heavy and dagged) of blue damask and myrish lace that seemed to come from a wholly different gown had to be laced onto them, with a complex spiderweb of red and golden ribbons that went all the way to the elbow, leaving glimpses of bare skin underneath the lacing.

To top it off, it was clearly becoming evident to Sansa she was rather too tall for her age: lady Olenna had not been wed until she was twenty, Margaery had confided to her, and yet the gown was too short for her, to the point of scandalously revealing the tip of her lace stockings. Despite everything, as she twirled in her skirt in her new, half-empty little chamber, she felt it was the loveliest thing she had ever worn. Maybe it was exactly that - it was so different from anything she might have worn down the aisle of the Sept of Baelor without anyone looking at her. It made her feel timeless and romantic, like this dress might have belonged just as easily to Queen Rhaenys, Jonquil or Jenny of Oldstones. 

The silver wolf she had carried all the way to Highgarden was stitched onto a simple white cloak and hastily surrounded with a pattern of silver thread snowflakes, and in the early afternoon one a maidservant brought her a crown of white roses for her hair. Finally, lady Olenna came to fetch her and led her down a hallway to a sept, festooned with flowers of all colors her eyes could distinguish and filled with a very respectable attendance, given the circumstances. 

“How did you do it with so little warning?” She asked, in awe. 

The Queen of Thorns shrugged modestly. “I suppose we are always ready for a good wedding, here in Highgarden.”

Sansa nodded, uncertain. She knew better than to believe her to be just a funny old lady with always some gossip at hand, yet she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what made her uneasy. They came face to face with the altar, such that she could see Loras at the end of it, and she looked up surprised when the lady didn’t let go of her arm. “My lady, will you…”

“Why, child, I know I can’t pretend to be as honorable as poor Ned Stark, but think you could have had Tywin Lannister playing your father! What’s that sad face?”

She bit her lip. She had expected to walk the aisle on her own, and she had tried pretty hard to not think about it, about the fact that every single person in this room couldn’t tell her from the first red-haired maid passing by, that the most important day of her life would be in the presence of no one who truly loved her, at least not yet - but the grimace on the old lady’s face heartened her a little and she forced herself to giggle as they took their walk to the altar. 

Loras was head to toe in white silk, subtle golden embroidery catching the sunshine. Her heart flipped and fluttered in her chest as he took her hands and gently pulled her away from his grandmother, into the rainbow light. Prince Duncan had cast off his black and red together with his crown on the day he married Jenny, she remembered hearing. Coming to her not as a Targaryen or a prince, asking not dowry or titles of her, but simply as a man hoping for her love. Such a gallant man as Loras must know that, didn’t he? She smiled shyly, looking up into his eyes as the septon began the vows. She was scared, painfully aware of being on the run and a contested prize, and she could feel treachery wrap around her like a noose, and yet when she looked into her future husband’s eyes, brown, warm and welcoming, with no hidden sharpness or ice, everything felt simple.

He vowed to guide her, protect her and provide for her, in the name of the Father, the Warrior and the Smith, and she vowed to give him children, be faithful to him and counsel him in the name of the Mother, Maiden and Crone, and in the name of the Stranger they promised to belonged to each other ‘til death, and then they were man and wife, his lips pressing against her for the dreamiest, softest blink of time.

A dance followed, and although she didn’t know all the steps of it, the music made her feel like every movement was as natural to her as walking and everyone in the room was admiring her grace as Loras twirled around and wrapped his arms around her waist. She adjusted the rose crown on her head and grasped his hand to go again, but to iher dismay Lady Olenna ushered them to the banquet table to receive their wedding gifts.

“It’s very unfair that everyone gets to dance when there wouldn’t be a feast without us.” She joked in Loras’ ear, and flushed all over when he ruffled her hair. 

“We must be brave, my lady.”

Sansa had never had any problems holding conversations or showing people the proper courtesies, but she found it to be embarrassingly harder when she didn’t know anyone’s names beyond the sigils on their clothes. 

Thankfully, Loras seemed to find it easy enough to gracious on his own - she let herself imagine, now it felt so far away, how daunting it would have been to have Joffrey by her side instead, calling people the wrong house on purpose and throwing back the cheaper gifts to the poor soul who brought them. With enough luck that was all Margaery would have to endure, if she truly felt so confident in taming him. 

Loras seemed to go from one guest to another as nimble as a bird, always miraculously correcting himself before he mistook a priceless old helmet for a flower vase and skirting any mention of relatives that had passed to Stannis' cause. 

When one of lady Olenna's cousins brought up the suddenness of the wedding, making a point of how inconsiderate it was to force his poor parents to miss their only son's wedding, he gave the old woman a disarming smile and said: "Why, Aunt, I only thought to hurry up so they might already find a grandchild waiting once Margie is wed and settled!" 

Sansa almost choked on her light arbor gold, and Lord Tarly found her awfully flushed and jittery when he presented her with an impressive collection of lace baby clothes made by his three maiden daughters. 

"It's said the Northerners are the fiercest warriors in Westeros. Here's to the hope you might give the Reach many manly sons at last, my lady." The man half-grunted, a vaguely resentful glance thrown towards Loras. 

Sansa was thrown in confusion for a moment, trying in vain to remember anything dreadful Lady Olenna might have told her about this family and their relations to the Tyrells, but when she looked at the young Tarly girls she was reassured. Lord Mace and Lady Alerie were perfectly happy with their children, but how could a loving father not think that, had they had more sons, Loras might have been married to one of his lovely daughters instead of a strange, awkward foreigner? 

She smiled to soothe his wounded pride. "My Lord, you are too harsh to your countrymen, for although I've been here but one day, I've already heard that your little boy distinguished himself in the squires' list and your oldest has bravely given up his title to join the Guardians on the Wall, where my father's natural son serves too. The realm needs brave men of every land to defend it in these difficult times."

She had spoken with perfect grace, and yet one of the girls blurted out laughing bitterly, another elbowed her, and their father shook his head and led the whole family away without replying to her or so much as addressing her thanks. 

It would have made her antsy, but right then the banquet started and some young Hightower cousins brought in a bard who begun with the bawdiest song Sansa had ever heard, and once they had cut their wedding pie they could dance again, twirling and jumping to The Bear and The Maiden Fair until her rose crown was lost in the dust and her stockings fell askew.

However, as the drunkest guests started to fall asleep at their tables and the candles ran low, Sansa started to feel uncomfortable. 

In her mother’s tales, her bedding had been a funny experience. She had such a matter-of-fact way of telling things, but she could hear from her voice how much she had enjoyed the lewd jokes of her old friends and her father’s bannermen, how she had responded in kind the same way she would be horrified of seeing her daughters doing, her tipsy and excited anticipation for the wedding night.

Sansa wished she could be as enthusiastic, and was ashamed of herself for her anxiety. It was hard to imagine her mother blushing, or being scared, but her mother had been a grown young lady of eight and ten, betrothed since her childhood and surrounded by her own friends during the wedding and bedding - and of course, she had never...

Every time she looked too long at some man in the hall, she became fixated on his hands, imagined him stripping her, wondered if he’d be gentler than Meryn Trant. 

She told herself it had to be so, for they were all gallant knights born and bred in the very birthplace of chivalry, as unlike Cersei’s corrupted lackeys as Lady was from a mushroom-sniffer dog, but it was hard to shake. 

However, as it turned out, she needed not fear any of that. When she and Loras were snatched from the dance in a chorus of indignant shrieks, her cloak and gown and shoes came away easily without much need for manhandling, and once they were both in the corridor and only in their smallclothes, Loras freed himself of his group of giggling girls, tickled his cousin until he was forced to let go of her and snatched her in his arms, running off to the bedroom on their own.

Sansa was definitely red, and barely breathing with excitement, her hand pressed over her mouth to avoid bursting out laughing like a toddler. She wondered if this was a tradition of the Reach, or simply something sweet Loras had always wanted to do on his wedding night - she was not such a child to presume he was jealous to see her among his cousins, it was only a game and even in ballads people couldn’t fall in love that fast, but the thought still went to her head like wine.

“I’ve always wondered how it’s possible that this sort of clothes feels hotter on than armor.” He - her husband - was complaining, unlacing his white silk shirt. “Haven’t your people been saying that winter is coming for a while?”

The soft, playful smile on his lips gave her courage and she let a giggle slip out. “It’s only a saying, my lord. It only means the North has to always be prepared for it.” 

“You don’t have to call me that now.”

Sansa’s heart started beating faster when he sat cross-legged next to her, and she jumped when he weaved his fingers through her hair. She closed her eyes, expecting him to kiss her, but he started undoing her braids instead, one by one.

“Margaery told me these are a pain to take off.” His tone was as assured and confident as he had been when he had offered her the red rose at the tourney, but his fingertips were hesitant. She found it endearing. 

Soon her hair was falling free on her shoulders, half-straight half-messy and cloud-puffy, like a laundry maid who had laid eyes on a hairnet. She felt faintly embarrassed at how quickly her lovely and poised bridal outfit had collapsed, and yet there was a pleasant feeling of wildness in it, as if she was back to just being a girl bathing in the pools of Winterfell. 

Taken by the surge of bravery that thought always gave her, she unlaced the first bow of her shift, baring her collarbones, sprung on her knees and turned to sink her fingers into Loras' curls. She feared he might recoil in horror when she brushed her lips against his, call her a slattern or forward or some similar insult, but he didn't.

He kissed her back for a few, lightning seconds, his hands firmly pressed on her shoulders, not wandering all over her body as she had heard husbands might do, but not cupping her cheeks or stroking her hair either, and he pulled away so soon.

Sansa sat waiting for a few moments, thinking maybe he would want to be the one to direct her. Loras only kissed her hand and laid beside her, muttering some comment about how much sweeter Highgarden nights were after being away for so long.

At that point she couldn’t hold herself back. “My- Loras, will we not…?”

Loras smiled at her, gently stroking her cheek. “You are so young. We will have plenty of time in the future.”

She giggled nervously, trying to sound coquettish and sweet. “But so are you, ser. Or have all your glorious deeds made you forget you are but eight and ten?”

There was a bit of hesitation in his eyes. “There is a saying, in the Reach, that the rosebud first plucked from the bush is the quickest to fade. You are barely a woman, my lady, if I may be so bold, and you should be in mourning, had the times and the situation not been so desperate. Let us have patience.”

Sansa nodded uneasily, a little reassured by the lovely, musical cadence of his voice. “But your grandmother…”

“My grandmother would chase me through the gardens with a stick, if she were to find out I bedded a maid as sweet as you in such haste, without a thought for her comfort or her pleasure.”

This made her go quite red, but trying to keep her wits about yourself she couldn’t quite believe it. Both Lady Olenna and Margaery had been kinder to her than anyone had been in a long time, but she could not expect a marriage to the heir of Highgarden to be pure charity, not from someone who was called the Queen of Thorns. She would at least expect for it to be valid.

“Oh, but she’s such a fierce woman!” She finally joked. “In a good way, of course. I would hate for her to think me a coward. I have such an esteem for her!”

Loras thought on her words a little, running a hand through his beautiful curls. Then he dug in the bed table, and pulled out a small dagger engraved with pansies around the hilt.

“I suppose, as your husband, it’s only right I should save you from such a terrible dragon.”

He placed the blade over his arm and slashed a small cut, letting a thin stream of blood drop on the sheet, where Sansa should have been laying. She gasped and wrapped her bed cap around his arm, pressing it over the cut. 

“Ser Loras!” The mischievous look he gave her made him look more twelve than eight and ten, the same face she would see Jon and Robb exchange when they had gotten up to some mischief in the village. It melted her defenses completely and she curled on herself - less “red as a rosebud” and more “red as a Dornish pepper.” “I always dreamed, when I was a little girl, that some valiant knight would spill his blood for me one day, but this is certainly not how I imagined it.”

It came out more melancholy than the vivacious jest it should have been, but Loras didn’t seem to mind it. “These stories don’t often come true the way you imagined them,” he said, “but there’s no excuse for why they shouldn’t come true at all.”

He offered her his hand as they both laid down to sleep, and for some silly, girlish reason it made her feel almost as safe and home in her new marriage as the bloody sheet did.

***

When Sansa woke, the sun was high and the birds were singing. The first thing she did was rush to the window to breathe in the scent of the orchard and see how different the sight was from the section of dusty moat she could see from her room in the Red Keep. The sun was hotter than she had expected, and her skin was going to redden and freckle, but plenty of Reach girls had lovely dustings of freckles on their noses and in any case, she was not going to receive a flat of the sword on her back for every blemish she had dared spoil the King’s property with. She took a deep breath and smiled, and leaned further to take in her surroundings. 

In the distance, the gardens and orchard stretched almost as far as she could see before bleeding into fields and vines, the green bright and vivid in her eyes. She could see a lake too, decked with lilypads as large as wheels, and the glint of the stream going through it, and the courtyard where men were starting their practice.

Squinting, she could see Loras among them, as fresh and beautiful as he had been in the sept even after a duel with the maester-at-arms and several with various little squires. She leaned her cheek upon her palm and let herself enjoy the view for a while, letting her heart fill gently with wifely pride at the smooth grace of his movements. After a while, she straightened up instinctively as she saw lady Olenna walk to him through the courtyard, hobbling over her cane.

She watched them talk, hid a giggle behind her hand when she raised her finger at him in scolding, and waved awkwardly when she pointed at her window. She had not meant to bother anyone, but when he walked back into the palace she still pinched her cheeks, put her hair in a hasty braid and threw a pale green robe over her still half-open shift, smoothing over the bed so she could sit over it to receive it.

As expected, in a short while he came through their chamber door, tousled and lovely, and she smiled at him almost without a choice in the matter.

“My grandmother scolded me for neglecting you.” He said, a mischievous smile on his lips.

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream… I do know there is a war going on."

“Still, even at war we are entitled to a honeymoon.” He left a quick kiss on her knuckles and moved to rummage in a chest on the side of the bed. “Do you enjoy games, my lady?”

She flushed a little. “I’m a bit too old for such things.”

He laughed, shaking his head, and she could feel herself burning up. “Fun is not just for children.”

He deposited in her lap a chequered board of pale and dark wood, each square engraved with a different flower. 

“Is this cyvasse?” She guessed, mildly intrigued.

“No, cyvasse squares are set different.” He pointed at a larger square in the center, the only one engraved with a rose. “In truth, you can play this on a cyvasse board just fine, but they started making them in Dorne first, but the woodworkers in the Reach wanted in on the business too, but then they didn’t want their work mistaken for Dornish, and one can’t not fight the Dornish when they’re given a chance, isn’t that true?”

“I suppose so.” There was so much she still needed to learn about the Reach. Loras looked so much like the perfect knight it was to remember he was to be a Lord Paramount. She took the silk satchel he handed her, closed her eyes and fished out two wood figurines - a freckled squire in too-big armor and an admittedly dashingly wielded dagger, and a smirking outlaw holding out his bow. 

Loras put them at a corner of the board another in the middle - this one a beautiful maid whose curls reached her feet, wearing an old-fashioned dress much similar to her wedding gown and flowers in hair - and handed her a dice with a smile. “There we go. We are… the melee champion and the archery champion of this tourney, I suppose, since I don’t see how we could be the last two jousters standing, and we only have to see who will first get to the lady to crown her Queen of Love and Beauty

“This is a very pretty game, for sure.” She said, in a burst of courage. “But will it not take a bit more spice than just a dice roll game to compete with the Dornish?”

Loras laughed, or at least tried to humor her sad attempts to wit. “Just see.” 

He rolled the dice and moved the little squire - she found it very chivalrous he had left her the more dashing figurine - four squares forward. Then, to her delight, he flipped the wooden tile like a trapdoor and fished out a small seven-pointed star.

“Ah, the call of the Gods! One of cousin Alla’s favorites. She’s always fawning over forbidden love stories.” He moved further, then explained. “See, I am allowed take seven steps more, for the Seven have chosen me as their champion - but there is a price, for now if I roll the same number twice in a row, I will have to take it as a sign and give my sword over to the faith with no time to stroll around crowning maidens, and need to go back to the start.”

“It _would_ make for such a pretty song.” She sighed.

“I know. When me and Margie were children we would make up stories out of our games, and tell them to Papa, and he never figured out it wasn’t the real story of “Princess Rhaenilla and the Knight of Buttercups”, from before the Dance of Dragons.”

Next turn, flipping the tile turned out a little lute, and Sansa had to improvise poetry on the spot to persuade the lady to accept the courtship of a lowly criminal as she was. She used to be very good at this, but she hadn’t had much room for music or poetry, nor necessarily the safety that everything she wrote would not be delivered to the queen at once, and so she could only fumble around.

“Lady, lady, with lips - mh - ah, fair as dew, fear not, my darling, I’m coming to you.  
I’ve come through the Reach and I’ve come to the- Storm?  
So I can keep you safe - safe in my arms and warm.” 

“I should say this does not pass the challenge only for implying such a pretty maid could be of the Stormlands and not the Reach.” Loras joked, but his smile felt a little false and she was grateful for his trying so hard to pretend this was any good.

They went on a while longer, picking up two wooden swords for a duel won by the highest roll, and a raven carrying a betrothal proposal, which required Loras a tolerably convincing speech to his imaginary Lord father on how he was too young for marriage, the advantages of the match (left to Sansa to come up with) were ludicrous and he still deserved a bit of frolicking around and courting fair maids before he settled down.

They were near the end when Loras cried out in triumph and pulled out a little wooden snake out of the lilypad tile. 

“What is that?”

He grinned, and she squeaked as he threw the snake at her. “It’s a Tyrell saying - I swear grandmother embroidered it in my diapers - look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent underneath. So, he who finds the serpent has more advantage to his opponent than the one who finds the sword, and it’s the only thing that ends the game straightaway.”

She felt herself shiver for no reason. “You have to admit this serpent business does seem a bit copied from the Dornish, my lord.”

“Just Loras.” His smile faltered a bit. “And we do share a border, for both of our misfortunes.”

She bit her lip, feeling slow and sluggish for a response, as if there was a discomforting puddle of muddy water around her brains, holding all the thoughts pressed in. As she often did, and never quite willingly, she found herself thinking about the words of the Hound. Courtesy, flowers, silks - it seemed like everything was made to kill one way or another, after you took away one or two layers of enchantment. 

She wondered distantly if this marriage, this place in Highgarden, this valiant rescue was all a test from the Seven, an attempt to fool her in with pretty things again, as if she was still the same foolish thirteen year old girl she had been then. _But I can be a pretty thing too._

"I hope my lord husband would not leave me to the mercy of the serpents," she said softly, idly stroking Loras' arm. 

Loras tilted his head, looking at her like a strange specimen. Of course her attempts had to seem terribly clumsy, used as he was to the sophisticated ladies of his family, but she forced herself to remember she was doing her best and kept her head high. "Of course, Sansa. I have made a vow to protect you from all harm." 

_Plenty of men did._ She bit her lip. "Aye, but what will happen when you are not by my side? My father protected my mother as long as he could, but she still has to face this war alone, and Robb is only seventeen. I hope you might teach me to become a bit of a serpent too." She remembered to blush. "I feel I know so little of the world, compared to your sister."

Loras snorted. "I wish you were in better hands, then. But I am your husband and I will not deny you anything you want to know." 

She nodded, pondering carefully the words she was going to say. "Well, for one thing… Lord Tarly, at the wedding… He was strange to me. He said something about the manliness of the Northmen, and I had heard his son has joined the Night' s Watch, so I complimented his bravery and said my bastard brother is there too and I hope they might both bring honor to the realm - I was just making conversation. But he seemed so offended - could it be its just because I mentioned his firstborn serving with a bastard? Is there something I don't know?c

"Ah, him. A true authority on manliness." Loras rubbed his temples, taking a good look at her. “Don’t feel bad, there’s no way you could have known, I suppose. But there is not much bravery in his son’s choice, nor any honor or anyone’s part. You see, he has a little boy he likes well enough, but his heir is wider than he’s tall and can barely hold a sword, so he thought to twist the chain of succession a little.”

Sansa sucked a breath in. “Surely he couldn’t…”

“He told everyone that the boy went there in disappointment after the Maesters refused to teach him, but I’ve heard he gave him a choice between the Wall and an unfortunate hunting accident.”

A shiver went down her spine. “Would he really be so awful to his own son? Did his mother, his siblings say nothing?”

Loras sighed. “I suppose he didn’t tell them, or couldn’t do anything. Maybe the son was too ashamed for it - I would probably be.” 

She huddled on herself and leaned her chin on her hand, disheartened. Loras reached out to touch her shoulder. “You’d rather you hadn’t asked, don’t you?”

She bit her lip.

“It’s like that most of the time. Asking questions, I mean.”

“It’s just… why would he send this boy to the Night’s watch and not to the Maesters indeed, if he’s no fighter? The Watchers are supposed to protect the realm.”

Loras shrugged. “If he became a Maester, he’d still be around in some lord’s castle, where he may meet him and people would recognize him. Don’t you know they send thieves and rapists at the Wall? Maybe he just hoped he’d slip to his death as soon as he arrived. I don’t often know why people are awful.”

She fidgeted uncomfortably. “I know, but Lord Tarly is a nobleman, and a knight. He should know it’s a honor too - that his son might even be Lord Commander, and-”

“I guess there’s no point in honor if no one sees you earn it.”

She flinched at the tone of his voice - not at all harsh, and it seemed impossible that from such a sweet face harsh words might ever come, but serious in a way that stood out to her. “Poor Jon Snow.” She sighed. “He was so happy to leave for his great adventure, but I don’t think he’s going to be in such good company as he hoped.” 

She felt a little silly at that - as if it mattered much, whether Jon had some gallant Reachman knight ready and willing to protect the realm against wildlings and goblins as his friend - and she looked away from Loras a little, but soon realized in horror her eyes were apparently still waiting for any moment of idleness to stark leaking out.

“Margaery never told me you had a bast- a fourth brother.” Loras said then, a hint of cheerful panic in his voice. 

She nodded shakily, pulling the corners of her lips up. "Oh, yes, Jon Snow. He's seventeen. I don't think I ever talked about him with Margery, because we were not so close, but I… I  
I do have him. But he got along better with Arya, and I suppose I was jealous, because I did get along better with Robb, but when The… the Greyjoy hostage came he only had eyes for him. And there was Bran - we used to play-act all the time when I was little, I remember, but he liked Arya just as much as me. He was such a little peacemaker, he wanted to get along with everyone-"

She sniffled, and almost gave up to wiping her face against her sleeve before Loras tilted her chin up and stroked her cheek." You must miss them very much," he said softly. 

_Sometimes I feel I miss everyone and everything I've ever known_ she wanted to say, but made her feel too heavy. 

"I never had to be jealous with Margie," Loras was going on, evidently having had a little lesson about courtesy and armour himself. "I was always hers and she was mine and we had all the adventures he wanted. But I always wondered what it was like to have many brothers. Maybe I shouldn't have." 

"You would have suited being a big brother well. You had such a soft touch with the boys in the yard." She tried to think of how someday he would teach sword fighting to a few curly haired, blue-eyed boys of their own, and not of how her father used to spar with Jon and Robb at once with a wooden sword in each hand, and how he had laughed when they learned to work together and beat him. They were smaller than Bran. Had they suspected how soon they would need it, and how they wouldn't get to work together when the time came? 

"I fear my motivations weren't so selfless and sweet as that. I didn't appreciate being my father's only heir much - I had so many idle fantasies of being the next Dragonknight. Had white roses embroidered into my handkerchief, my party silks made white so everyone would know my future when they saw me. I was a dreadful child.”

“Oh, I can’t blame you for that when these fantasies aren’t idle at all.” She made an effort to smile, and make herself at least pleasant as a reward for the embarrassing outburst she had made him to sit through, even though her stomach had dropped at the awareness of how empty-headed her fawning over his wedding outfit had been. “I thought you’d make a better Kingsguard than Meryn Trant and Boros Blount since the moment I saw you.”

“Not quite the great white swords I dreamed of competing against, but I thank you for that courtesy.” He idly brushed his lips against her knuckles. “Of course, my father tried to explain to me I was his only son, but my argument was: we have cousins in case I were to die young and they had to take my place, or what would be the points of having cousins? My father insisted it wasn’t the same thing whether I died or just didn’t feel up to being a lord, so I made plans to throw my green-and-gold cape on the riverbank as if I tragically drowned and make my way to King’s Landing with just my sword and shield on my back. I don’t know why I didn’t. I’m guessing Margie stopped me.”

“This is terribly dashing.” She sighed and caressed his arm. “I’m sorry to have stolen you from a bride that had a lawful right of precedence on you. I hope you might forgive me.”

To that, Loras darkened and shrugged. “This was all a boyhood dream anyway. I wouldn’t want to be in this Kingsguard.”

She shivered, wondering what he knew and if the reason why he hadn’t taken off her nightgown was because he was picturing scars down her back. “It wouldn’t have honored you as much as the one that served King Robert in your childhood,” she managed to squeak out. 

He shook his head. “I would have been content with what I had. But I have already been in a King’s guard. I still have the rainbow cloak, barely used. Once the sun has set no candle can replace it.”. 

She was enchanted by the flash that went through his eyes, the pride and devotion of it. She thought of the Hound again, foolishly enough, for the poor man clearly had never been able to be devoted to someone he was proud of. But she felt the same exhaustion she had seen in his eyes then, for power games and for war and for false knights, and a “You’re so much different from the others” slipped out of her lips before she could help it. 

The corner of Loras’ mouth quirked up. “Different from the part of my family who passes from king to a king like a bottle of arbor gold at a wedding, you say?” 

She flinched against her will, hugging herself instinctively. “Different from the other knights I met.” She managed to whisper. “From those who don’t care for the vows they made. Aren’t loyal to their king. Don’t protect the innocent.” 

Loras scoffed. “People always forget I’m the Queen of Thorns’ grandson too. I know what you mean, and why should you hide it? Everyone thinks it. But the Tyrells have always done what they needed to do to grow strong. We protect each other” 

She swallowed, barely a little whiff of voice left to speak. “I haven’t heard anyone call you turncloaks, not the way they called my family.” Because the Queen didn’t have as much use for us, she thought, and her heart squeezed with the cruelty of it, her mouth feeling bitter just as the thought of saying it. She forced it away, stroking her palm on Loras’ cheek. “Is it really others who say it, or are you just so cruel to yourself?” 

Loras sighed, closing his eyes against her touch. "I am not, at least, not anymore. My grandmother reminded me that knights promise to protect all women as well, and what sort of knight would not protect and support his sister on her way to be Queen? And after all I vowed loyalty to my King until my death or his. I did not slay him myself, which is more than what is expected of a Queen's brother, and things did not fall out in such a way I had the grace to die with him. No man could blame me." 

There was such a sadness in his eyes she could barely stand his glance, and he shifted the subject abruptly when he noticed. "Although from what I hear you told Grandmother of the king, there might still be Kingslaying on my path." 

She shifted, her fingers starting to twitch in agitation. "I'm sure it will not go so badly. Margery is very clever, I… I'm not so brave and I could not make Joffrey like me. I might have exaggerated…" 

"You are braver than most, and clever enough too, though you lie so much, but that's not strange or wrong for a Tyrell. I wish you didn't lie to me, though." 

She flushed. "I only want to bring you happiness, and honor on your house. You're my husband." She couldn't help but think it was her fault, since he had made such an effort to start the day pretty and bright. But her daydreams of marrying him during the tourney had done so little to prepare her for a real marriage, and the way she had thought of him afterwards, safe strong arms of a spotless, fearless knight to burrow into when she felt scared, left her helpless in front of someone who she had a wifely duty to comfort and yet didn't want to receive it. 

He smiled tiredly. "I'm sure we'll both do our best, as much honor as two turncloaks' children can possibly cobble together." 

He pressed a gentle kiss against her temple, and she leaned on his chest and figured it was too early in their marriage to begrudge him the secrets of his heart. 


	2. Chapter 2

Sansa’s hair fell as she threw her head back, floating in the water like lazy red fish. She looked at the sunlight filtering through the treetops, slowly letting the warmth soak in. Loras, with the light touch and grace of a practiced knight, bumped her with the oar. 

“You’re going to get a cold.” 

She threw her hand in the water and splashed him leisurely. "I'm of the North." 

"Is this why you wanted to do this so badly? All the lakes are frozen over where you're from?" 

She splashed him harder. “Margaery told me the pleasure barges were the thing she missed most from Highgarden. I was curious." She thought it best not to share the particulars of the image she had fantasized for herself, involving puppies and babies and long romantic dives. 

"It's nice when we take them on the days of the Seven, or for tourneys, and there are parades down the river and music and flowers in the water. With just the two of us there's not much to enjoy but bugs and frogs. You can't even really fish here." 

Sansa grimaced. For all his show of elegance and gallantry, Loras could be such a _boy._ She didn’t suppose he would be very receptive to her pointing out it was quite romantic. " Don't take home for granted." She warned him, tracing lazy circles in the water with her fingertips. Two butterflies in their wedding dance swirled about her cheek, tickling her a little. "These bugs are pretty enough anyway." 

Loras shook his head, sighing. "I could have had a brooch like that made for you, then, if you had told me it was your name day soon in some advance, instead of trying to gloss over it like a self-effacing little Silent Sister." 

Sansa blushed to the root of her hair. "That would be a bit childish of me." 

"What? Celebrating name days?" 

"No, not that." She didn't want to mention to Loras how little in a mood to celebrate anything she was, feeling utterly away from home as she did when she should have well started to get used to Highgarden. "A butterfly brooch. A married lady should have jewelry to represent her house, or her faith, or something elegant and simple by all accounts." 

_Loras laughed rather shamelessly and openly this time. “There’s only one more reason to enjoy what you can now, then, since this nameday marks your last year before you must cast childish joys aside.”_

_Boyhood ends upon a name day, girlhood upon a wedding night,_ she almost replied, the voice and accent of her poor septa still as clear in her mind as the last time she had spoken to her, but her pride reined her in. 

"I see Margaery has taught you nothing at all, " she only mumbled, turning away with an exaggerated pout. 

"Forgive me." He lazily kissed her hand, but she could see he was still barely holding back mockery. "I only remember that when I first met you you wore a very pretty pin shaped like a dragonfly. I thought you would like it." 

"Aye, well, for the story of Jenny of Oldstones and the prince of dragonflies. As childish as can be." 

She suddenly very much wished she hadn't started this conversation. She realized it might have been silly to hope, but she had always thought there was a power in being a married lady - a husband’s protection, sons and household knights, the confidence and stability of the role, the burden and responsibility of managing an estate, and the wisdom that surely must come with marriage, or how could the wedding vows talk about a wife counseling her husband?  
Yet for all she had no reason to doubt Loras or the vassals of Highgarden respected her, she still felt like a silly young maid who could be played with to anyone’s liking. 

“Do you want to go back home?” Loras asked, snapping her gently out her own head - thank the Seven. She knew she was living too much in there. “It’s starting to get dark.” 

She nodded, wrapping up her hair and squeezing them to get most of the water out. She made a token effort to help Loras row back, although he was so much better at it than her, but she almost dropped her oar in the water when she saw Lady Olenna standing on the bank, a letter in her hand. 

“What does she want?” She whispered to Loras, puzzled. 

“I don’t know. I just hope it’s not Margaery with some dreadful news about Megga again." 

“She would have to be with child for this one to be worse than the last.” 

Margaery’s letters were always full of gossip, and the adventures of her young cousins were always at the forefront - but once the plump little maid had sent a betrothal up in smoke being found to have been deflowered than a squire the chatter had quite lost its taste. 

They pulled up to the shore, and Loras to made to ask his grandmother for news, but Lady Olenna brushed past him, taking Sansa’s hand in her small, wizened palms. “There has been an incident at your uncle’s wedding, child.” 

She blinked, startled for a moment. What sort of incident might happen to a wedding that would warrant Lady Olenna coming to tell her personally, even at a wedding involving the Freys? “What? Is my uncle Edmund…” 

“He’s alive, aye, and well married.” 

“Oh…” she dug her nails into her palms, resisting the urge to fidget. There was nothing in the old lady’s face that felt like the anticipation of good news. 

“The Frey have turned their back on your family, child. They set a trap at your uncle’s wedding to destroy your brother’s army. They killed your mother and your brother with half their bannermen while they were guests under their roof.” 

_She heard Loras gasp, and more words from both of them that had to logically be condolences of some kind, but she couldn’t hear them. She felt herself shake._

“No, that couldn’t be. What have we done to deserve this? Don’t deceive, I’m begging you, I’ll do anything, you promised Margaery would-” 

Strong arms wrapped around her waist, but it only cut her breath off, and her words turned into an agonized scream. 

She must have fainted then, for after a while she was in her bed, her riding gown pulled out and Loras’ cloak wrapped around her shoulders. She laid shivering with her eyes closed for a long time, hanging desperately onto the hope she would wake up in her old bedroom in Winterfell, in King’s Landing - even in Joffrey’s bed would be preferable to this. She almost made it real in her mind - she could picture herself waking in tears and sighing in relief - when a touch on her shoulder jolted her. 

“How are you feeling, my lady?” 

She snapped up and stared blankly into Loras’ eyes, her mind failing to respond to her in any way. She felt as if his hands on her arms were burning her, and she wanted to squirm free but the thought made her feel so alone, and brought her the awareness nothing would ever change that now, and the words started spilling out before she could control them. 

“I want you to give me a child.” She begged, clinging at his hand. “I’m very young still, but I’ll need to have five or six at least. Eddard, Catelyn, Robb, Bran, Rickon - who am I fooling? Arya too. It’s good to have two daughters, anyway it’s- I didn’t get along with mine but it’s good to have a sister. We’ll raise them to be gentle and gallant and hate Lannisters and the war will end someday and we’ll have puppies and name day parties and tourneys again, Margaery promised me we would, is it too much-” 

She broke off in terror, tears pressing behind her eyes again. It was cruel and unladylike, to lay claim on all their children’s names like this, but how could he complain ? She felt the poison twist inside her, the poison the Lannisters had put inside her and into the memory of her family, of her childhood innocence - what right did he have to complain at all with his whole family living and growing strong, mother and father and his old grandmother too, his sister to be queen on the ashes of Sansa’s misery, honored and praised when they had been traitors too. She hated herself, and yet she couldn't find a reason for kindness no matter how hard she tried. 

“Don’t. We’ll think about this when you’re not so distraught, but now it would not soothe your heart.” 

“If my lord husband says so.” She forced herself to smile, but she knew it must look wrong and frightening. “Help me look for my brother’s wife, then. She might be carrying his heir, she’s all that’s left of my family. You’ve promised to always protect me and provide for me, and we may raise her baby safely here in Highgarden until he’s old enough to take Winterfell back. If she’s still in the Riverlands, it wouldn’t take much.” 

Loras shook his head. “Sansa, Margaery writes this girl’s brother is already betrothed to a Lannister bastard girl. The family was planning this even before our wedding, they gave her moon tea, and if they didn’t then the girl is Lannister to the bone too.” 

“Why are you here if there’s nothing you’re willing to do for me then?” She pushed his hands away. Everyone thought she would be content with pretty words, like a little bird, like the Hound had said. No one had ever tried even a little for her sake, and no one ever would now. She hid her face in the fabric of the cloak, trembling with rage. “Why did I even bother asking you? I know you only married me for my claim. I bet your grandmother is dancing in the solar, now there’s no one before me in the line anymore." 

The wounded look in his eyes made her tremble like a jolt of lightning and she burst out laughing when he left, curled up in a ball, the poison ebbing up and down until it threatened to leak out of her eyes. She wanted to pray, and she wanted to ask the Gods what she or her family had done to deserve such cruelty, but she was scared she already knew the answer. She hid her face against the pillow and cried herself to sleep. 

Loras was there again in the morning, a little red-eyed, and while she considered telling him to shove off and stop pretending he cared at all when he asked again how she was, she didn’t have enough fight left in her and only started crying again. 

“I dreamed Mother took us all to Riverrun. It was summer, and she taught me and Arya to make mud cakes at the pond.” 

It hurt, how much being wrapped in his arms soothed her. She didn’t want to accept his muddled, unreliable pity - part of her still thought a wife shouldn’t burden a husband with unattractive sorrows, and she didn’t want to own up on her loneliness. 

But he was warm and welcoming and she leaned her head on his shoulder and sobbed until she was hoarse again and the night of sleep seemed to have evaporated from her bones. 

“Come with me.” He said when she had gotten quieter. “It will not do you any good to hide away in the dark." 

She feared he would drag her out to court, expecting her to accept even more muddled and false pity from people who didn’t care for her, but she followed him all the same, because it felt more bearable than being alone. He didn’t, though - he didn’t bother to wait for her to dress, only adjusted the cloak he had left her around her shoulders and took her through a whirlwind of side corridors, all the way down to the stables. 

She didn’t have the strength to object, but the thought of going out to endure a ride made her knees shake, and Loras hoisted her onto his own horse, wrapping his arms around her like she was a small child who hadn’t learned to ride yet. 

“Where did you go weep for your father, when they would call you a traitor if anyone saw you?” 

She squeezed her eyes, trying to cry as he softly brushed against her back. “In the Godswood, by the heart tree.” 

“It’s true the south and the north are not so different.” She heard him sigh, but she was too tired to ask for explanations. She let him take her deep into the woods, the fresh air and sunshine washing over her without leaving a trace on her heart. 

Loras tied his horse in a small clearing, where a toy wooden castle had been propped up against the trunks. They went in and she took a look at the toy soldiers spread out over the floor and what must have been Margaery’s dolls and rubbed circles over her heart to keep it from aching, to keep her mind from wandering back to the time she’ll never know again. 

She watched Loras pull a small box from under the wooden floor and sit with it in his lap, his eyes somber. 

She flinched as he put something in her open hand - seemingly just a snapped piece of antler. “Renly gave it to me as a comb when I went to squire for him. He said it was the only thing that could do anything with my curls, and I looked like a bird’s nest and I was embarrassing him.” 

Sansa blinked, uncertain of how to respond or what he meant at all, but he just kept going. “He gave me these gloves for my first melee too. They’re too small for me now, but I always kept them. And this shell - there’s a lot of them on Dragonstone. It’s from giant snails that turned to stone with the centuries. We used to see them on the cliffs. The rake made me believe they still existed, and spat fire, for more than I was proud of.” 

Her fingers shook and the shell fell out - she put her other palm under it and gasped not to cry out. Loras pulled her closer, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. “He was buried near the place he died, and none of us had much time to mourn before we had to rush onto the next plan, so I had to make myself my own place, to come weep and remember him. Your mother and your brother will never even have a funeral. I don't know if this wood is anything like your Godswood, or the places where you went to play with your siblings, but you should have your own place for them in your home, where you could feel their presence and I - no one would intrude on your pain.” 

She sniffled, painfully aware of how uncouth and cold her behavior must have been to lead him to the conclusion that was what she wanted. “Why would you need that? No one can begrudge you to weep for your king. I heard Joffrey tell his little brother men shouldn’t cry once, but Joffrey is just a fool.” 

Her words sounded proper enough, but as hollow as if they were not coming from her own mouth. She heard him sigh as he drew his fingers through her hair. “Margaery lost her husband. She had more of a right to weep than I do, and I should do it on my own time without stealing people's attention from her.” 

“If Jon was here we would just weep together.” It escaped her lips before she could think about it. She felt so stupid, and not only stupid for the way people looked at her or smirked at her words - her whole head felt like it was wrapped in wool, so heavy it could fall off with a wrong movement. “For Robb at least, though I don’t think he ever liked my mother. I wish he was here so much.” 

Loras’s long silence made her queasy, but when he spoke again she almost jumped like a scared animal. “I wept with Margaery. She held me and petted my hair like I’m doing now, and she wept harder to distract everyone from how much I was, from how - I loved him the way I’m supposed to love you, and the way maybe you desperately want me to love you. But the best I can do is love you like she loves me.” 

Her head spun, her eyes filling with tears. “I should not have kept you from the Kingsguard. All I had to bring you is pain.” 

She felt his strangled little laugh against her back. “It’s not you. It’s not the Kingsguard. I don’t know how well you can understand this at all. I was in love with him since I was a child, and I will- well, when the sun has set no candle can replace it. I wish I hadn’t had to lie to you, but then I also wish I hadn’t had to lie to anyone.” 

Sansa looked up at him, her mind failing to make sense of his words - for a moment she thought he was trying to distract her to cheer her up, the way her father would talk so sternly about the mole-men coming from beyond the wall to steal her pearly baby teeth if she didn't smile enough, and make her laugh much more than if he had said it joking or scary. But Loras' face was tragically somber and his eyes a little damp, and she realized with a jolt this was very real. 

It felt immediately odd and embarrassing, like a secret too dirty for her ears, the same sort Theon and Robb would report from their night adventures to put her in trouble with Septa Mordane - but then it felt ridiculously obvious. _When the sun has set no candle can replace it._ Chaste knights often hid words of love and longing glances in their vows of loyalty to ladies they could never marry. Why should lords be any different? 

"I kept going on about how hard it must be for Margaery, when I met you," she mumbled, flushing. "I gave you my condolences _for her_ and kept hassling you about that stupid rose you gave me-" 

"You were just a little girl. They tell stories about Jenny of Oldstones and the Prince of Dragonflies, but none about Prince Daeron and Jeremy Norridge, who died in battle by his side." 

_She sniffled, trying to think of whether it would comfort her at all, knowing there would be songs about her pain someday, but she felt too numb to tell. “There will be. Peace will come and we will have a beautiful court where singers will flock and we will commission whatever songs we want to hear of them. We just have to… wait.”_

She felt awful, utterly empty of any words of comfort, but an amused sigh came from Loras’ lips. “Aye, that is what we fight for.” 

She bit her lip. “Did it help at all? Coming here to cry, to remember?” She did not feel like anything would ever help her, and she could not fight the same way he did. 

“No. I wanted to die most of the time, until Margaery told me I should at least try to live for vengeance.” 

Sansa twisted uncomfortably against him. “Didn’t that make you feel empty, like everything sweet and beautiful was over forever for you?” 

He shrugged. “A little. This… this was not how I had wanted for our song to end.” He idly twisted his fingers in her hair. “But it helped that I had the rest of my family to plan the war with, and that everyone always agreed I deserved this vengeance, and that everyone would - I know it’s for power, after all, but still everyone would fight for me to have it. And it helps that I know when I’ll finally come to kill Stannis, I’ll know Renly would laugh himself to tears if we could see me." 

There was a faint smile on his lips as he closed his eyes, imagining it. Sansa looked down miserably. Her parents had wanted her to be kind, sweet and graceful, not the sort of person who murdered kings, and Robb would want his dainty little sister safe from harm. But none of them could have imagined the things life had sent her way and what she had grown up to become, and her father couldn’t have known when he had agreed to her betrothal that ridding the Seven Kingdoms of Joffrey would not only be the bravest, but the kindest thing she could do. 

She wept all the way home, her cheek pressed into Loras' back, wept with grief and rage and wistful memories of her long-past happiness bubbling up every once in a while, but she did not feel alone

*** 

She went back to the woods alone. She had brought so little with her from King’s Landing - she had thought her life was beginning anew, she couldn’t have known she would end up hanging onto her memories so much - but she had a shawl that had been her mother’s, that could be spread out like a tapestry. It was deep tully blue and embroidered with a spectacular pattern of seals, seashells and leaping fish, a project she had proposed to Arya and Sansa after a visit to White Harbor, hoping to entice Arya’s interest. Her mother had made the design and nine-year-old Sansa had worked on the filling stitches, while Arya, who felt intimidated at the idea of ruining their mother’s hard work, soon limited herself to handing them the needed yarn and consulting on the color. They had ended up in a screaming row after disagreeing on whether the spiral shells should be pink, as Sansa believed was necessary for the sake of color balance, or pale brown, as Arya had observed they looked underwater during a very much unauthorized dive, and Bran had taken over from her as an assistant. 

She would make a tapestry that looked like real weirwood, when the war was over and she wouldn’t have to take so much time to sew for the soldiers: it would be white and red and green and she would embroider her whole family on that background, in the white and greys she had once found so boring, standing in a row smiling, their arms outstretched towards her. Still, for now this would have to do: she spread it from one three to another and hid behind it. 

She took the six pieces of parchment then and spread them out before her then - she didn’t take one for Jon Snow, for she wanted so badly to hope she might see him again. She wrote the names of her parents and her siblings, drawing snowflakes and leaping wolf pups and the thrush blossoms Robb would braid in her hair in spring in the corners, then strung them on the trees with the bell and beads Loras had brought her. 

Her father had taught her that wise old holy men could hear the voice of the Gods in the way the wind went through weirwood leaves. There leaves weren’t quite the same as the ones in the North and Sansa was neither old nor wise nor holy, so she put a different pattern on each pendant, so she could distinguish who was trying to talk to her - Arya’s two silver bells that broke their rhythm hitting and clanging against each other, his father’s single bell softened with a velvet ribbon. 

That day she spent the afternoon cuddled up against the shawl, praying and weeping and whistling replies when the wind made the bells speak. 

The day after she brought a book of poisons with her. 

*** 

Sansa lingered long in front of the mirror before the wedding. She had brought everything she might need, figuring she would have a better idea of what to do once she was in court again and had taken a look at the environment, but Loras had been wary of flaunting her presence too much and she had understood painfully little. It was tempting to go to the wedding dressed in deep mourning, throwing in the face of the whole court what their precious king had done to her, but she didn’t want to call attention to anything that might look like defiance. For this time she would have to be a little bird again. 

“Would being pregnant make me look more innocent?” She wondered out loud, holding up the padded chemise she had made for the occasion." 

“Too much of a risk.” Loras shook his head. “What if Joffrey absolutely wants to embrace his goodsister?” 

Her stomach turned at the thought - which meant that it was absolutely something Joffrey might decide to do. 

“Alright.” 

She put a plain chemise on and donned a unreproachable green silk gown. 

“Ready?” Loras called from the door, already dressed in a green and gold doublet that would match Margaery’s wedding gown. 

She nodded and held out her hands to him, sighing deeply to steel herself as Loras knelt and rubbed her hands in the pomade. 

_The plan was meant to be simple and straightforward: three small doses of slow acting poison, distributed through the day, so that the young King would be merry and healthy on his wedding day and die in his sleep of confusing, contradictory symptoms within the fortnight._

The first was the Dornishman’s Wife, famous for being so often transmitted with kisses. She wasn’t planning to kiss Joffrey, nor she thought she would be forced, but according to the rule of courtesy he would have to kiss her hand. Then would come a single drop of Tears of Lys, in the prize pheasant they had gifted the palace cooks and begged, affecting the embarrassed pleads of a young married couple who desperately wanted their favor to the King to be noticed, to serve to Joffrey first. The third was a crystal they had a jeweler embed in the chalice the Tyrell family as a whole had gifted to the King: it was called the Mermaid’s Kiss, for it slowly eroded into the drink like salt into the sea, and one that was so light to be harmless on its own, because while Margery knew not to drink, they couldn’t account for the possibility she might have to do so to dispel suspicion. 

Loras finished his work, pressing a kiss on her forehead, and they walked to the hall arm in arm, practicing their smiles and trying not to shake. 

She was grateful for his familiar touch when the Queen stopped her with a hand on her shoulder and she silently prayed she would not get a whim to touch her hand too, but she only smiled at her and uttered an icy “I was sorry to miss your wedding, little dove.” 

She successfully curtsied and said “Your Grace was always so kind to me”, but when it was time to queue up to present her wedding gift Loras needed to wrap both arms around her and stroke her arm to keep her from running off. Although she had only been away for so little time, Joffrey seemed to have gotten taller, more frightening - a man and no longer a bratty child she could keep content with pretty words when luck smiled on her. She could feel his eyes fixed on her, digging under her skin like filthy, slimy claws, but she clenched her teeth and curtsied before offering the chalice to his hands. 

Joffrey did not seem satisfied with that, pulling her closer. “I wished you’d married my monster uncle,” he said, sounding thoroughly bored, though mercifully low enough for the rest of the assembled guests not to hear. “At least I could still have you once in a while.” 

She felt his hands on her and for a terrifying moment she feared he would try to rip her clothes out, kiss her on the lips or neck, but he must realize there were too many eyes around them, for he simply kissed her knuckles and shoved her off. The nervous breath she let out must have been easy to hear for everyone, but right then Joffrey brought attemption on himself tripping unceremoniously. Sansa’s eyes locked with Margaery’s for a moment and she smiled at her, before the younger queen made a big production of noticing her long train had been flicked into the king’s path and apologizing profusely. 

Sansa was astonished by her bravery. They would go through with their plan and then leave for Highgarden as quickly as possible, but Margaery would be the one to sleep in his bed and dine by his side as he slowly died, the one to bury him, the one who had flirted with him and enjoyed his company and only had Sansa’s pains as a reason to hate him, for what that was worth - and yet her face was cheerful and steady as if it had been carved in porcelain. When Sansa had first met her she had been mesmerized at the thought of having such a sophisticated and graceful sister, finding her more satisfactory than Arya, but now she reminded her of her in a way. For all that the rest of her family would be horrified to see what their innocent little pup had grown to be, Arya would laugh and hug her seeing she was finally brave enough to give her poor butcher’s boy justice, and the thought gave her some strenght. 

She hid a smile into Loras’s shoulder as they left, glad they would have some time to walk and calm down before the next part of the plan would come to fruit. The ceremony was a peaceful reprieve for that, allowing her to simply breathe in the calm air of the sept, looking at the rainbow light and praying quietly for forgiveness, if there was anything left to forgive. 

The banquet didn’t favor her with such luck, for they were the bride’s siblings, escaped hostage or not, and they were to be seated at the high table, right next to the royal couple. 

“It’s not too late to find an excuse to avoid it,” Loras whispered in her ear, hand curling protectively around her shoulder, but she shook her head. It would call too much attention, and there was no reason for anyone to connect her to a murder set to happened days later - no more than anyone else at the table. They sat between Joffrey and the utterly unfortunate pair of lady Olenna and Tyrion, which made her nervous for a while, thinking about Joffrey’s words; but the Lannister seemed to realize that and tried his best to put her at ease with some coarse, but very witty jokes about his trip to the Wall with Jon. She threatened to start crying with pent-up nerves when he mentioned the special saddle he had made for Bran, but it was distracting enough and when she spied Joffrey taking the best parts of their pheasant her heart didn’t play any funny tricks on her. 

At last, the dwarf fools that had been carrying on a dreadful joust for the guests’ pleasure - _the dear boy was always eager to honor his favorite uncle,_ Tyrion whispered wryly in her ear - brought in a pitcher of wine taller not only than them, but than most of the ladies in attendance. She sank her under the table where she could squeeze Loras’ without being seen, breathing slowly. 

The wine was poured; there was toasting, to the King’s health, to the Queen’s fertile hips, to Stannis’ defeat and Joffrey’s prosperous kingdom. 

“What an ordeal this is.” Loras complained in her ear. “If there was a tourney it would at least have gone down faster.” 

She nodded, too breathless to reply convincingly. The chalice was making the rounds around the table and she was trying hard not to cringe, reminding herself even a full scale of Mermaid’s Kiss on its own could not give more than fever and chills and Joffrey would still end up taking the most of it.  
It reached their side of the table, and after Tyrion took a worrisomely long gulp and Olenna had to wrestle the cup out of his hands with a general fumble she braced herself to just wet her lips in the liquor and pass it away with the littlest fuss she could manage. However Olenna snatched the cup from her hand too, handing the cup back to Margaery, who set it down on the table. 

“It’s not good for young newlyweds caught in the ordeal of making an heir to have too much wine,” she jested painfully loudly.

_Sansa tried hard to smile. She knew it was meant to shield her and Loras from suspicion, but she wished the sly grandmother had not put herself in such a risk, and yet she was paralized with awe at the way words and masks came so easily to her._

“I would like to see your little wolf pup, Sansa,” Joffrey said cheerfully. Loras and Margaery’s eyes locked - she had a feeling of something off. Joffrey downed a gulp of pie and washed it down with wine, still laughing. One of the beautifully carved lanterns that had been set over the royal couple shook with a gust of wind, and a shadow seemed to rise behind Joffrey, taller and broader, a king as his father had been and not a boy - then he fell on his knees. 

She pressed her hand over her mouth as she saw him hold his throat, choking desperately, his face slowly turning purple. Loras was on his feet and she hid her face in his chest, but he pushed her away gently and rushed to the king’s side, smacking his back - it was good, it was good for him to keep the pretense up, but Margaery was weeping in Olenna’s arms and people were starting to crowd and she needed to be held so badly. 

She hoped it was maidenly enough a reaction, to stand frozen in the middle of the chaos, pale, teary-eyed, unable to help herself or anyone - she couldn’t manage anything else. She kept repeating to herself that it wasn’t her fault, that no one could think that when she had barely managed to bend over the cup, that the Mermaid’s Kiss on its own was a fish poison and a mild one at that, but Joffrey was twisting and choking and her mind felt like it had been wrapped in wool. 

On the other side of the table, as Cersei rushed to her firstborn’s side, she saw little prince Tommen sob softly, held back by a Kingsguard, and when their eyes met something broke in her - this little child no older than Bran was, than Bran would be, weeping even though Joffrey had never done anything but hurt him because he was still his awe-inspiring older brother, just as a little Robb once had worshipped Theon Greyjoy, pined for him to laugh at his jokes and teach him archery without a clue of what he would turn out to be. She began to wail, her fists knotted tight into her hair, and she could not stop as the someone screamed that only the person sitting closed to Joffrey could have reached the cup after everyone had drunk, that she was mad with jealousy, that she yearned for a lion pup - the spirits were too restless to bother saying “fawn” - in her belly instead of a simpering little rosebud. 

There were twin tears in Loras’ and Margaery’s eyes as she dragged away to the keep, and she stretched out her hands, but nobody took them. 

*** 

_Loras came running for her as soon as he could, she could tell, and yet she was already shivering and on the verge of tears from the loneliness of the cell, as if the whole world had abandoned her._

He kissed her hands and lips for the guards’ benefit, and once the door was shut he pulled her into a tight, deep hug. “Grandmother told Margaery not to come - it would draw too much suspicion - but she tells you to be strong and hopeful. You were always good at that. We’ll find a way to take you out of here, I promise.” 

She ignored that, as much as she wanted to believe it. “The poison was in the pie, wasn’t it?” 

Loras sighed. “Grandmother thinks it’s likely. It must have been a long plan, older than ours even - there was some chap witchcraft, or maybe a mummer to make that shadow. She tried pleading guilty, but the Queen did not believe her. She said of course everyone wanted to protect you, when you’re younger and more beautiful - I think she was a bit drunk.” 

She shook her head. “She shouldn’t have bothered. They want me dead - the Queen doesn’t like her little pawn was taken from her, and her father did not like losing his key to Winterfell. I’ve heard the guards whisper I turned into a ghastly winged wolf and bit the King’s neck as he drank. They’ll believe any lie that ends with my death.” 

Loras buried his face in his hands in thought. “If we could only know who else might have wanted the King dead - who else at the wedding, that is. My grandmother still has spies here, and my mother may not be as clever, but she notices a lot. We might find out.” 

“Whoever it was was a step ahead of us. They’ll know what we’re thinking - they’ll become twice as careful, we won’t have time.” 

“Who might look like they wanted the King dead, then?” He said fiercely, his eyes fixed in hers. “The Imp never got along well with him, and he was recently demoted from the Handship.”

“No, no, we aren’t going to do this. We are not going to make anyone innocent suffer for this. I made my choice to do this, I- I’m not innocent.” 

“What are we going to do then?” His voice rose dangerously, she brushed her fingertips against his lips. “We’re not just letting you die for this. One could say you’re the most innocent person here. One could say the King has been begging you to kill him since the day you met him.” 

She bit her lip, thinking of how much easier it would have been to just slip off the Hound’s hold and push Joffrey down the ledge, sparing everyone so much suffering. She was so willing to die, compared to the way now every part of her was shaking and every time she closed her eyes she felt Ilyn Payne breathing on her neck, and yet she still had some hope of reuniting with her family then. Had she been braver as a child, or did she just already know that she would belong with the dead soon enough? 

Loras’ hand pressed against her cheek. “No, don’t cry. I promised to protect you, we’ll get you out of this.” 

She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to fulfill her promise of obeying her husband the only time he would ever claim it. “How? You should just let me die here. I should have know there was no hope, I should have known nothing could ever go well for me, I-” 

“I will bring you your special chemise. A thicker one when it’s time, though I hope there will be no need to wait that long. We’ll - we’ll say you had just barely realized you were with child, it will buy us time. I will plead for a trial by combat.” 

She gasped, shaking her head. “Don’t. Don’t die for me. They’ll have the Mountain as their champion, they’ll never give you a chance to win. It’s not worth it.” 

A stabbing reminder of his family’s stolen, flourishing luck shook her, like it had on the day she had found out her mother and Robb had died, but there was no bitterness to it this time around, just resignation. It had been sweet enough, to be married, to have a grandmother, a sweet sister, a garden and a orchard and a pleasure barge and hope, but she fit among them like - like this exactly, a corpse at a merry wedding feast, an imposter stealing her happy place when all she had left was vengeance and grief. She never should have allowed for anyone else to be involved in that.

Loras squeezed her shaking hands when she tried to hide her face into them. “No, you will not stop me. I made a vow to you and- and I would miss you. I'm not going to let anyone else who I should have protected die." 

Sansa didn't know what to say that wouldn't make her break into sobs, and breaking into sobs would only make him more stubbornly determined to protect her and make everything awkward and painful and a terrible last memory of her; so she simply held him tight and dropped a kiss on the top of his head before he left. 

*** 

Sansa tried to be brave and keep her wits about yourself for a few days, hanging onto Loras' and Margaery slipped notes for her sanity, but on the fifth day she was so jumpy and her sleep was so unsteady that the brief shift of light of someone stepping in front of the lantern woke her with a jolt. 

Squinting, trying her best to pull herself up in a composed manner, she made out the figure of two men in traveling clothes sitting at a respectful distance, but bending towards her with such concern she felt them very uncomfortably near. 

"What brings you here, my lords?" She asked in a nervous, wispy voice, pulling her blanket around her as she observed their faces. They both had light hair and eyes, but could not pass for kin: the older man was bearded and worn out, the lines of his face as sharp and once-handsome; the younger had a open, trusting face, freckled and scarred, and the loveliest blue eyes Sansa had ever seen. 

“We are here to help you, my lady.” He said as she was looking at him, in an ardent and pleasant voice, and Sansa realized with burning embarrassment it was a woman before her, and likely a maiden as well, though homely and taller and broader than many men. 

“Did my husband send you here? What interest have you in helping me?” She whispered, her voice timid with disbelief. 

The older man laughed. “No, little wolf, we’re here on your account alone.” 

Sansa found something vaguely familiar in that voice and narrowed her eyes, trying to figure if the man could be of the North. Then she recognized the shade of his eyes and gasped, remembering how she had heard not the voice, but the particular accent of his sarcasm at the wedding. “Ser Jaime, is this you? I didn’t know you were freed. Do you bring me merciful news from your sister, is this the help you offer me?”  
“I don’t think I am my sister’s preferred messenger boy anymore.” The man said quietly, and Sansa’s breath hitched as she followed his eyes to the bandaged stump of his hand. “I came for you on your lady mother’s behalf, although I came too late to take you back to her.” 

She hugged herself, her outburst of hope quickly starting to fade. She knew the Lannisters well enough to know some were traitorous, but the Kingslayer had always seemed very close to his sister, and he had been the one to attack her father without any reason at all, when everything had started going wrong. She bit her lip, carefully choosing her words. “Surely a noble knight would not steal a prized hostage from his sister and the King he vowed to protect.” 

“I did vow to protect the innocent as well.” The knight said, very casually. “But I would not call this stealing. Your mother sent me back to trade me for you and your sister, and I swore to keep this one oath. She was not very hopeful about it, she did mention that I have shit for honor, so I had no choice than to be honorable this one time. Your father’s judgement was already bothersome enough.” 

Sansa snapped up on her feet. “I see you’ve come here to mock me, but tell your sister your words can no longer hurt me.” She sniffled, pathetically aware of how crying would ruin her attempts to dignity irremediably. “I understand why you may want me dead, but not what you and your sister think to gain by trying to humiliate me. I’m sure you treated my father the same way when he was your prisoner, but doesn’t your promise to protect all women detain you at all, ser? And yet you would say such coarse things about a lady everyone knew was kind and noble and well-spoken, to the only child she has left to remember her, for you’ve murdered the rest.” 

She pressed her hand against her mouth as she whimpered, leaning against the wall, unable to muffle her sobs on her own. 

The Lannister looked at his companion. “It seems I was talking about my ass and you were right, as usual. I have _not_ met many girls like this one.” 

“My lady,” the young woman said softly. “Although I know you have no reason to trust this man, I was present when he swore to your mother to bring you and Arya home safe and sound and she did - she did make such a comment, my lady, but do not fault her for her lack of courtesy - missing her babies made her desperate, and she could be as fierce as a she-wolf when she so wished. And in my travels with Ser Jaime he has never strayed from the mission we have been assigned.” 

Sansa took a better look at her. Her nose had been broken, her face was littered with fresh bruises. Nothing inspired trust in her but her eyes, but Joffrey’s eyes had been bright and sparkling with desire too. “I have reasons not to trust him. It is you I have no reason to trust, for I still do not even know your name, now why my mother would trust you with such a mission. You are not of the North, and you do not sound like you’re of the Riverlands.” 

The young woman blushed deeply, in a way that felt as incongruous and out of place as poppy blooming out the mire. “Of course - pardon me, my lady. I’m Brienne of Tarth, and I served in king Renly’s guard, until he died and your mother promised me she would give me a place in her army, and offer me revenge.” She swallowed. “She told me many things about you and your sister. That she was very willful, but you were always well behaved and- a lady- a lady at three, she said. That the bells rung from sunrise to sunset on the day you were born, and that she loved to brush your hair, and one time when you were six she tried to give you a braid of the Vale as a surprise for your father, but she forgot how mid-way and your hair were so tangled she had to cut them - as short as mine, she said. She meant to say my hair would grow as lovely as yours if I let them, and she could not know it, but she was always so kind to me.” 

Sansa blinked back tears, bewildered that this was really her mother who fought so fiercely and commanded knights and sought and offered revenge, and yet filled with longing that she would never meet this face of her in the world of the living. She tried not to give away her despair too much, to not be an easy prey again. “I want to think no one but my mother would know to tell you such things, but I cannot give my trust so easily, nor of my own accord, now that I’m a married woman. My husband was in Renly’s guard as well - perhaps you may come here tomorrow at sundown, when he will visit me, and I will see if he finds you trustworthy.” 

The Kingslayer and the woman exchanged a look, then she grasped her hand impulsively, speaking to her in a whisper. “My lady, you were alone when you were married. If you were forced into this union, there is no need to tell him when or where you’ll escape.” 

Sansa looked into her bright blue eyes and the poison stirred in her in a violent whiplash, indignant that this woman would look at her with such understanding and talk as if she was truly there on her behalf alone and she could let herself trust in the honor of strangers again, when that would never be true and yet she longed for it so badly. She only lowered her head demurely. “We will see.” 

***

She half expected to have dreamed the encounter as she went through her day, shivering, the cold of the cell starting to seep through her bones. She had started three parchments to help the time pass - a speech that started with _I have loved Joffrey with a child’s love since the first moment I met him in my father’s castle. I am a wife now, soon to be a mother and with no other aspiration than to live to see the end of this war peacefully in my home and raise my babe to be a faithful servant of the realm, and although you may think I was jealous to see my goodsister be Queen in my place, all there was in my heart during this wedding was the sweet memory of the gallant boy of fourteen who rode with me on the Trident and gave me my first kiss_  
Another, for a more desperate eventuality, of which she had only managed to get to _People of King’s Landing, I will be killed today in spite of my innocence, as my father was before me; but first, I want you to know the truth about the man you cheered so happily as your King, and about the family that still rules over you._

The third was a letter for her brother, that she would definitely need to make a prettier copy of, which read _Jon, I’m soon to be executed. I wish I could have seen you before it came to this, I wish I could hug you one last time. But because fate has been so cruel with us, I name you as the heir to my claim of Winterfell. If this makes you happy, if you look into your heart and know you couldn’t leave when our childhood home is left to the Boltons, claim it; but if you have found happiness where you are, if your post on the Wall brings you honor and satisfaction, if you love your sworn brothers and wish to stay with them, do not bring another war on our house. Be happy, for you’re the only one left to be._

She hadn’t been able to finish it: at any rate, she hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Before noon, Jaime and Brienne came to her cell, discussing the possibility of a trial by combat, which the Lannister was rather sure his sister would accept.

“If I was a whole man, I would ask my sister to be the one to avenge her precious boy, but as I am I doubt she will accept my plea.” The Kingslayer said in a convincing enough apologetic tone.

Sansa nodded numbly. “I know. It will be the Mountain - she knows the rest of the Kingsguard is useless, and Loras… Loras already lost against him once.”

She thought she was doing a good job of not shivering, but the breath was knocked out of her when Brienne’s rough fingers brushed against her hand. “My lady, if it’s necessary that I fight him instead, I am more than willing, even though my sex might make you doubt my skill, I can assure you-”

“No, I fear it will change very little who goes to the fight against the Mountain. He’s more demon than man.” She interrupted a bit too quickly, aware she was flushing. She felt suddenly excessively aware that this young woman would not die for her own sake and it was unfair to let her do it, but it also stung a little. She did not know why. She had made peace with the fact she had not been married for love already. “We will need to win this with cleverness, not strength. If you could be so kind to bring me a few books on the subject of trials, I would be glad to be able to take on at least some of the burden of rescuing me.”

“Still, the wench did beat your husband in the list, I’ve been told. You might want to take that into account.” The knight said, with a teasing smirk on his face.

Brienne went immediately purple. “You make it sound as if I was so uncouth as to brag-”

She went silent as the door creaked open. 

“Margaery told everyone in court you're pregnant. Everyone's talking about it.” Loras announced as he came into the cell, and before he could notice she wasn’t alone she went up to embrace him, careful to present the right amount of wifely affection - just because she was desperate enough to consider trusting these people it didn’t mean she had a right to trust them with his secrets. But Loras stiffened in his arms, his heartbeat fast against her skin.

“What are you doing here?” He hissed in a way that felt like a scream, his hand looking for the sword that he probably had needed to leave to the guards. She opened her mouth to explain about the oath the Kingslayer had made to her mother, but then she noticed he was looking at Brienne instead.

“Ser, I am here to give you m-my help.” Brienne stammered. Sansa looked at her in bewilderment. Surely whatever had happened at the tourney wasn’t cause for such shame?

“Help her to her grave?”

Sansa turned her head to the loud crack as he smashed her empty bowl against her wall, throwing himself at Brienne with a shard in his hand. He dodged the Kingslayer’s fist as quick as a snake, pushing him to the ground as he held the shard to the young lady’s throat. Sansa stood frozen for a moment, too terrified to scream or turn away, but Loras didn’t it sink in.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you in the dark like a rat. The whole world must know what you did to the only who gave you a chance to be any use, you _scum_ -”

“Loras!” She stepped closer, placing softly her hand on his arm, careful not to startle him. His eyes were flaming, frightening, but Brienne’s were as sad and lost as a small child’s, no fear or surprise to them. It set Sansa’s heart off with nervous jitters. Did she not fear death at all?

Loras replied to her after what felt like years, his voice so low and monotone and unrecognizable she turned around sharply at first to see if someone else had broken into the cell. “Sansa, this woman served with me in Renly’s guard, until she murdered him and ran from her fate like a coward.” 

“What? No, no this cannot be. She followed my mother, she swore a vow to her, she didn’t run for any reason, isn’t that so?”

To her horror, Brienne’s cheeks were overrun with tears. “Ser, he bled out in my arms. I couldn’t stay.”

She tried to speak again, but couldn’t. Jaime Lannister looked at Loras with contempt. “The wench couldn’t lie to save her life, boy, but she’s strong. I would be careful with my words.”

“I’m not going to take advice from a Kingslayer defending a Kingslayer.” Loras snapped. “Speak for yourself, woman, why did you do this when he had just chosen you among the best knights of the Reach to be his guard. Did Stannis pay you? I promise I will be as just as the Father and give you a quicker death than his, if you were only his hand. Or did you try to kiss him and went mad when he rejected you?”

Brienne wailed - the Kingslayer pressed his hand on her mouth and stroked her back, muttering something about the guards. “It- it was a shadow, ser. It slit his throat just as he was speaking, and - I couldn’t stop it. I could just watch him bleed.”

She wrenched free of the Kingslayer’s hold and fell on her knees, her face hidden in shame. 

Sansa looked at Loras uncertainly. “There was a shadow behind Joffrey’s back at the feast.”

She had tried to tell herself that witchcraft belonged in Old Nan’s stories, that the vapors of some poisons created delusions, but she could see it now still, clear before her eyes. Even if it was only a trick of the light, why would two different people try it, and how could it be done just as well in a dark tent and in a beaming wedding hall?

Loras shook his head. “She must have heard about it. It’s a convenient excuse, for she was alone in that tent and has no one to blame.”

 _My mother, my mother was there_ she tried to squeak out, but it didn’t come out, and the Kingslayer’s voice drowned her out.

“We came here last night and this wench didn’t speak to a soul, boy.”

Loras’ whole body shook wildly, and Sansa wanted to embrace him, but she was as paralyzed by terror as she had been the night of Blackwater. “If this is true, why would you not at least _try_ to die for him? He was your king, he was the worthiest of kings!”

She looked to Brienne, desperate for any answer. “What do you say about this, lady Brienne? Am I to believe my husband?”

Brienne tangled her hands in her hair, shaking her head. “The worthiest of kings, aye, I loved him, you know I loved him, but the shadow would not take me too. And the lady Catelyn - I am cursed, my lord, all those I served have been cursed with misfortune, but I have been loyal and true until the end, and _I loved him-_ ”

“You should be ashamed of still saying that out loud! You would have fallen weeping on your sword if you loved him half how much - if you loved him at all.” Loras barked, his voice high and close to breaking.

She clung to his arm, unable to restrain herself anymore, her limbs melting like water at the idea her only hope could be snatched away from her so quickly.

“Loras, let’s speak of this. We cannot choose to send away allies over a baseless suspicion. I can’t believe such a sorrow could be false. If you trust your wife, allow me to have my say on this.”

Loras looked up to the other two warriors, his eyes blank. For a terrifying moment she feared he would attack again, but he hit his fist on the bedframe and snapped at them instead. “I will decide for myself with my wife whether you’re worth the trust I would give a scorpion. Go.” 

They hurried to the cell door, Brienne wide eyed and panting, the Kingslayer choking back bitter laughter. “I’ll ask my brother for all the history books he can spare, my lady, but I don’t know if you’ll have time to spend on them at all, with such a passionate tragedy to entertain you” 

Brienne elbowed him, a truly pained look in her eyes that made her want to follow her, but she realized she could not, not now.

Loras slumped by the side of the bed, sighing heavily, his hair falling over his eyes as he looked down, biting his lip. Sansa cautiously took his hand and he began to cry, not as openly as he had in the woods of Highgarden, but harshly, boyishly, as if he resented the tears for falling.

“Loras, you saw the shadow-”

“I did.”

“Then what makes you think it was her? Whatever it was, it’s the same thing that killed Joffrey, and this woman wasn’t in King’s Landing at the time.”

“They say Stannis has witches at his command. Witches are prettier in the songs, but that’s no indication.”

She frowned, perturbed by the cruel bend of his mouth. “This is most unlike you. You’re a true, a gallant knight.” She pressed his hand to her chest, at loss for words. “Think - think it though at least. If she could kill at such a distance, why would she have needed to be there in the tent, and if there’s no need for her to be present then she’s no more suspicious than anyone else.

“She had more opportunity to be alone with him than anyone but me, he trusted her. And that she ran after - why would she not stay and explain if she was innocent? I killed two men that could be alive now if only she had stayed and explained herself.”

“You didn’t let them explain. Would you have let her?”

Loras buried his face in his hands. She stroked his back. “My mother took her in her service, Loras, she was there when it happened. Do you think she would trust a murderer and kingslayer?”

Loras shook his head, his eyes vacant. “My grandmother is a murderer and kingslayer. My mother gave her blessing to it. I don’t know why I should trust anyone.”

“Why did you trust me when I married you then?”

He shrugged. “You were a child, but of all the people my grandmother spoke to in the court you were the only person to tell her frankly the truth about Joffrey and that Margaery should not marry him, the only one who cared more for her than for the Tyrell gold and swords, and you’d known her for an afternoon. No one would have suspected you knew the first thing about treachery.”

She smiled bitterly. “And yet I learned treachery well enough in just a smattering of moonturns, with a good enough reason.” She felt so hollow, with no good arguments for anything. She wanted to just lie down and forget everything in her dreams so badly. “You say Renly trusted this woman. Why did he? It’s not often you see a woman take up sword and armor, and most men would not have trusted her.”

Loras sighed. “He had a whole story about it. He said he danced with her when she was thirteen, and she was obviously in love with him and hung from his every word, and when he declared war she defied her father’s will to come fight for him and begged him to be able to die for him. But Renly - I loved him, but he always assumed everyone liked him. Everyone did always like him. But if this woman was treacherous, he would not have seen it.”

Sansa was quiet for a while, frowning. It was very odd to think of Brienne as a young girl lost in dreams of love - she couldn’t imagine she had been as foolish as Sansa had been. But this man could not be as awful as Joffrey, not if Loras had been so in love with him, and he might have been truly worthy of her esteem and bravery. Yet the thought saddened her, and not only because clearly he would never have loved her back. It was a strange, disquieting thought that no matter how hardened and brave someone may be, love would always sway them so easily. And yet the ballad of Brave Danny Flint did say maids have soft hearts even under mail and furs-

“You’ll think I was just jealous of her, and it makes me suspicious.” Loras mumbled, startling her. “You can’t be blamed.”

“I don’t think so at all. I think… I know you’re heartbroken, and you want to do something about it now more than later, and that you’re all too aware it will be so much harder to find the person responsible for this witchcraft than to kill her now, but I’m scared you’ll be led astray.” She squeezed his hand tighter. “I fear for your honor, and for your soul.”

“The truth is that I’m jealous. That she was by his side when he died, that - that she could have died for him. That she could have chosen to die for him. She had said she would- ”

“Loras.” He sniffled as she took his face in her hands. “How could she have fought back against a shadow?”

He broke into sobs, and she held him tighter. “Loras, I’m your wife, I’m your family. I promise I will help you have your justice should I crawl through the Seven Hells for it, just as you helped me have mine. But we need to at least try to trust your beloved’s judgement.”

He looked at her blearily. “We don’t have to _need_ her. I have a life to give up for you no more than she does.”

She kissed his forehead. “I would rather have the life you promised to spend with me.”

Loras fell silent, but she felt him nod against her shoulder. She stroked his hair, and prayed she was right and would not go to her grave guilty of having taken the last thing he could do for his lost love from him. 


	3. Chapter 3

Brienne came carrying a pile of books with precarious balance, but commendable determination, and Sansa burst out into nervous laughter seeing the way she rested her chin at the top to hold it still, like a maidservant faced with a truly overwhelming amount of laundry. She hoped it felt more warm and comrade-like than meanspirited, but she still felt a little like being sworn to her mother must have been a much easier ordeal for the lady than this one.

“Ser Jaime has left you alone so ungallantly?” 

That made her slip definitely. She gathered most of the books against her chest before they fell, in a surprisingly graceful movement of her muscular arms, but Sansa leapt on her feet to catch one and saw her go scarlett red. “He must have a lot to talk about with his brother,” she amended, feeling a little guilty for making her uncomfortable when she was going to such a risk to be kind to her. She recognized it was a rather silly and girlish thing to worry about now, but she couldn’t help but want to understand what had happened between her and the Kingslayer as they were travelling together. Maybe as her liege lady she should counsel about keeping her honor, but she didn’t know whether Brienne was a maid at all or whether marriage was among her objectives, and at any rate she would feel very preposterous scolding her when she was twenty and somewhat more experienced of the world than she was. It did irritate her that the Kingslayer would soil his white cloak with womanizing when it had been denied to Loras - but that could never have been helped, and she herself was too old to resent the world for not going as she pleased.

She arranged the books around her, stroking their soft leather covers to calm herself down and trying to pick a place to start. 

“This one is about the reign of king Maekar, my lady.” Brienne interrupted her thoughts. “It begins with the trial by combat at the tourney of Ashford, where Ser Duncan the Tall risked his hand to defend a poor peasant girl. It was one of my favorite stories when I was a little girl.”

“You’re very well versed in history, lady Brienne,” she commented half-present, disheartened. The tourney of Ashford had been a much more haphazard thing, and a trial by melee rather than single combat - if this was the best match that could be found for her needs, the hope of finding anything at all was slim.

“If there is anything more you need, I might try to ride somewhere for more books. It will not take long if I ride alone, and the war has not yet reached the Crownlands as awfully as the Riverlands.”

“No, stay with me.” She asked, impulsively, grasping for her hand. “We are in the kingdom’s capital, and if what I need isn’t here - I should perhaps just resign myself.” She shivered. “Are you devout, my lady?”

Brienne bit her lip. “House Tarth keeps the Seven and I learned the faith from my septa.”

Her lips curved up despite herself. “I see. Our Northern gods are not so eager to meddle in human business - they’re less easily persuaded about it with oaths and prayers, at any rate. I know my fate is already written. But if it’s a dark one, I’d rather spend as little as possible of my last days alone.”

Brienne’s eyes were sad, but she nodded, sitting by her side. Her nearness - the warmth and human scent that came from her, likely - made her a little dizzy after so many days in a cell, pulling her to lay her head in her lap and weep, but she straightened up instead and began to read. 

She went through the story of the tourney of Ashford quickly, finding plenty of heroic deeds and edifying tales, but not much in the way of legal matters, as she expected. She read on, skimming tome after tome until her eyes burned. She curled up and raised her knees in a most unladylike fashion so she could rest the books against her thighs when she got too tired to hold them. Brienne was very quiet, and Sansa thought she had fallen asleep for a while, until she moved to pour oil in her lamp, startling her with an apologetic smile. 

Sansa sighed and swapped fairly maester Yandel’s fairly dull and unhelpful, but readable chronicle for another one. 

She wanted to lay her head down on Brienne’s shoulder, but she was frightened of falling asleep and losing precious time. She rubbed her eyes, trying to follow the index of the book, but her eyes went over it like water, nothing to stop over.

“Oh, who wrote this? Baelor the Blessed’s reign comes after Aegon the Unworthy’s, but before Jahaerys’, so it is not in order of letter ot time. Did this Maester forget he had to write this book until the last night and sewed some chapters from other chronicles in the order he found them?” 

“Maybe he just wrote them in order of which king he liked better, my lady.” Brienne said, in a strange, prim voice that made it hard to tell if she was joking or not. “You would make a much more scrupulous maester than most men.”

She smoothed her skirt, fighting the temptation to just drop the book and lie down. “I suppose needlework will teach you at least a little bit of order. But not all women are as exceptional as you - should I call you ser, maybe?”

Brienne fidgeted with the laces of her doublet. “I was not knighted.” Her eyes lowered, the lamplight hitting stark on the irregular outline of her nose and cheekbone. “And exceptional - you speak just like your mother, my lady, you’re just as kind, but I’ve done nothing more exceptional than my duty, as you did your own.”

“That’s true, we all do.” She shifted, leaning her cheek on her palm. There was something endearing about the way Brienne took compliments so bashfully. She must at least be used to receiving those in the lists, even if her family might have been disapproving of her at first. “But most of us give us the duty we were given by our birth, and the one others will require of us. The Seven know I didn’t choose the life that brought me here. It takes much courage to take a different one just out of the valor of your heart, and one that might take you to your death so easily.”

“Men’s duty is not any harder than women’s, my lady. Ladies die on the birthing bed and they… they have to shoulder the burden of being the one who remain when they’re gone.”

 _I know you’re not any less acquainted with that burden than I am,_ she wanted to say, but she hated the thought of upsetting her, or humiliating her with the memory of her love, if she was as ashamed now as Sansa was of her childish fantasies.

“But men do not choose their duties any more than women do. I know you had to defy your father to join the fighting, and there must have been a lot of strange looks and sharp tongues to face. Men know at least they’ll have their glory.”

She hoped that would tickle her pride at least a little, but Brienne winced, her brow furrowing. “My father was willing enough to let me do as I pleased, and I never had a choice on whether to face sharp tongues or not.” She pressed her hand to her lips. “My lady must forgive me. I am speaking in a way unworthy of your company, but I’m not used-”

She bit her lip not to smile. “No, you’re not.“ She tugged at her hand. “But you are too modest. I am your liege lady, and I wish I could give you at least some recognition here in private, as I can’t in public yet. Ser Jaime is the Queen’s brother, and has a protection in that sense, but you’re putting yourself in such a position for me.”

“You are most kind.” Brienne mumbled. “But I did not have a choice of the kind you say - I did not have a choice to be a beautiful, graceful lady, and find a husband who would stand to marry and give me children. I would be ridiculed if I tried no more than I would be for fighting, so it was not hard to choose the one that would allow me to serve my king and protect his people. But it was not as brave as you think.”

Her eyebrows raised, but she kept trying to smile. In truth, Brienne didn’t have a very womanly figure, nor could she imagine her in silks, but surely she was old enough to have made peace with the fact most men didn’t have that as their first priority in a wife. Moreover, she absolutely had the eyes bards sung about, and most men were not self absorbed enough to think they deserved that, and then the breasts, lips, hair and wasp waist the bards sung about too.

“I’m sure you had plenty of suitors, and I know King Renly was fond of you and would have introduced you to plenty of good matches, and you would have had no trouble being a mother. My poor little sister, she reminds me of you a little, and she said she never wanted to get married, she would tease me when I read love stories or - when I wanted to marry Joffrey, when I was a child, that is. But she had such a temper, though it’s true she was just a little girl, and you’re much calmer. You would not have had problems doing anything you wanted, whether you liked swords more than gowns or the other way around.”

She realized she was talking way too fast - chirping, in truth, and not making too much sense. But Brienne was not laughing or smiling at her nervous jitters, and though she wasn’t averting her glance from her anymore, her eyes reflected only pain. 

“My lady knows Renly was fond of me, but doesn’t know why I… why I was so fond of him.” She rubbed her hands over her face - Sansa noticed idly they had freckles too, but the strain in her voice prevented from taking a good look. 

“Brienne, you should not share this if it pains you,” she interrupted, mortified. She had not meant her curiosity with any ill intention - she only wanted to know. The cell must be driving her restless.

“No, my lady, there was nothing wrong with asking, after all. You see, my father was so kind to me about letting me learn to swordfight, and then leave for war, but he did try to find a husband for me, as all fathers do. The first one was when I was only a little girl, but he died young.”

“Oh, Brienne…”

“I did not know him, I only wept for a day. But the second one - the second one was when I was a little younger than you, and he brought me a rose when he came to meet me for the first time. I was so nervous, and I hated my gown and I hated the idea of getting married, but I hated the idea of not getting married and having to do this over again even more. I couldn’t sleep that night, and I stuttered when I had to welcome him in my castle, but when he looked at me - he was revolted, my lady. I thought there was something wrong - that I had something on my gown or my face, that some animal had come behind me, but no, it was me that repulsed him. “

Sansa gasped. “Brienne, you don’t have to-”

“And he gave me the rose, and he told me I would never have anything else from him so courteously and smilingly, as if I wouldn’t understand. I hated him on sight, and yet I was broken hearted. I didn’t leave my room for days. My father had to force me to dress up, when lord Reny came visiting and he held a ball, and I was so scared of the idea of meeting him I had nightmares for a week before he came. But once he was there - he danced with me as if I was a maid like all others, and smiled at me like he enjoyed talking to me. I don’t know how true it was, now I’m older and should be wiser, and I wish I could say the reason I… I loved him after was not something so silly, but that he trusted me with his life, and gave me a chance to prove myself, as your husband said. But the truth is that I had already decided I would die for him that day.”

Sansa was quiet for a while after she finished, realizing she had never heard the maid say so many words at once, and reluctant to interrupt her in case there was more she needed to relieve her heart of. But Brienne was stuck in silence, and she carefully slid her hand over hers, her breath getting stuck in her throat.

“The world is so full of cruel men,” was the first thing she managed to say, and immediately she didn’t like it. It felt stupid, as if she was trying to ignore what Brienne had truly said. _You should want more than this. You could die for him if he danced with you as if you were the loveliest maid in the world, and smile at you as if the stars shone out your freckles when you laugh._

“I hope you’re happier now than you were as a young girl. I hope you know your own worth better,” she tried, and this made her smile a bit.

“Some, my lady. The third husband my father tried to give me, I said I would only marry if he could best me in single combat. He didn’t.” A fleeting smile beamed through her face. “I was happy in Renly’s camp too, when the war had just started. One should not be happy about war, but I was a girl and I only knew what the songs say about it. But that... it only lasted a while.”

Sansa sniffled, drumming her fingers on the back of her hand helplessly. “There will be songs about you too. Things will be better than they’re now.”

That miraculously drew a little laugh from her. “When I am dead, and people can make me prettier, I presume there might be, if I do anything to deserve them.”

“There will be before the year turns, if I have any say about it.”

She stopped, still dissatisfied with her own words. Brienne was bashful and sad about this, and it was clear she thought it should diminish Sansa’s opinion of her, but she only felt a deep, bitter sorrow. It felt unfair that she could fight for her, but there was nothing Sansa could do to keep her safe from humiliation or rumors. Her mother might have done it if she lived - she had her way of shaming people into goodness with just one sharp glance, gentle as she was. But Sansa didn’t have an intimidating bone in her body. 

“I do not care for that anymore now, my lady. I’ve seen it’s hard enough to be good or honorable enough to deserve anything - if I can manage that even a little I will be happy with myself. I should not have worried you with this - you have enough to fear already.”

Sansa wrung her hands in her lap. “A lord is supposed to swear never to ask any dishonorable deeds of their knights, but so little respect this,” she mumbled. Brienne did not say anything to that, and it struck her hard how much she must trust her, and how undeserving she was of it. She looked down miserably. She loved the Tyrells - and first of all, _owed them_ \- too much to risk speaking freely. But by what right could she take her honor and goodness from Brienne, if it was truly the only thing she felt she could be proud of? 

“Lady Brienne,” she started, breathing quietly. “I didn’t kill king Joffrey. I didn’t put poison in the pie, and I don’t know how to command shadows. But I can’t bear the thought of lying to you with your honor a stake, so I must tell you I -” she bit her lip, rearranging her words in her head. “I rubbed a poison on my hand when I gave it to the King to kiss, and I only didn’t kill him because someone did first. If you wish to leave me now, I am happy to free you of the promise you made to my mother.”

Brienne paled, her freckles standing out like bloodstains. She wasn’t quite expecting her to snap or scream at her, but her long silence unnerved, and shivered when she only asked. “Why, my lady?”

It felt so dirty, so shameful to say it had been something as base as revenge. Even when Brienne must suffer Renly’s loss so keenly and had said she had wanted revenge, clearly she was not so consumed to not value her honor more than it, if she was here by her side. 

“Your… your husband’s family forced you, perhaps?”

“No, no, it was my own choice,” she hurried to correct her. “I wish I hadn’t now. But I had just found out about how my mother and Robb died, what his family did to mine and he gave his blessing to, and the thought that he would marry my poor goodsister and live and reign for the rest of his life unpunished was too much. I will regret it forever, but it’s done.”

She rubbed her eyes. She had never resented her tears before - life had not being giving her any reason to abstain from weeping, but in that moment she felt keenly aware of what the Queen had told her about tears being a woman’s weapon, and how now every one of her tears felt like a blade pointed at Brienne, threatening her to stay. 

“You said - your poor goodsister. Did the king mistreat you, when you were engaged?”

Sansa flashed hot with shame in spite of herself. She felt so helpless. “He was very cruel to me. He forced me to look at my father’s head, he had me stripped and beaten, sometimes in front of the whole court. But it’s over now, and I could very easily have simply kept away from him. It doesn’t matter.”

Brienne had stopped listening to her, her eyes wide in shock. “Beat you, my lady? Did no one stop him?”

Sansa blinked back tears. “He is the king. Who could have done so?”

Brienne sighed, grasping her hand harder, making her start. Her face was shadowed, pensive. “Indeed. No one can wield justice over the King but the Father, and the Father’s judgement work in mysterious ways. So justice is left to men, and men are so often unjust, and cruel, but it's still the best we can have.”

Sansa looked at her, gasping in disbelief. Brienne smiled at her sheepishly.

“I spoke much about knighthood with ser Jaime during our journey. I- I may not betray the secrets he told me in confidence, my lady, but he talked to me about his vows, and of how it can be hard for a knight to obey his king and protect the innocent at the same time, or to respect his family and obey the law.” She sighed, rubbing her forehead. Sansa followed her every movement, holding her breath. There was something so solemn and beautiful in the way she spoke about it. “I always resented that I would not be a true knight, anointed and officially sworn. But now I see there might be good in it, for I can choose the vows I wish to follow on my own. And I think I would betray myself if I didn’t fight for justice and to protect the innocent above all.”

She sniffled. “You’re risking so much more than just your life in doing this for me. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank you.”

“There is no need to.” She gave her a soft, watery smile, her glance fixed deeply into her. “Someone who wasn’t worthy of loyalty would not have felt the need to tell me the truth for my sake alone.”

Sansa wanted desperately to respond, but couldn’t find the words. She felt her hands tremble, not in fear but in a sort of nervous, internal tingling, and she realized she would never manage to do justice to such devotion in words.

She rose on her knees, placed her hands on Brienne’s shoulders and kissed her. She felt Brienne’s hot gasp of surprise against her lips before anything else, the wispy ends of her pale hair softly tickling the backs of her hands. Her lips were fuller and softer than Loras’ and their touch against hers was so newly exciting she struggled to keep herself upright as her thighs shook a little, and when she wrapped her arms around her waist, timidly, but in a way Loras most definitely hadn’t, her mind felt like it detached and soared above her body. She felt a future stretch out before her in a way she had given up on hoping, and in the span of a few moments she saw her violent first kiss in the night of the Blackwater battle, the game she had played with Loras on their first wedding morning, the sun glint on the lake of Highgarden and the thrush peeping through the melting snow in Winterfell and the first moment she had seen Brienne’s eyes in her cell, all flashing within her in an intoxicating awareness that if this was possible, everything was. Then it was too much for her to keep thinking lucidly, and all she was aware of were their chests brushing each other, their heartbeats drumming confusedly against each other in a maddeningly beautiful song.

Brienne pulled away from her, slower and more hesitantly than the Hound or Loras had, another altogether new sensation that made her sigh with longing against her lips. 

She had read of how lovely the moment before a kiss was, in the books septa Mordane deemed too frivolous for a well-educated young lady - the furtive meeting of eyes, the closeness, the dreamy half-second the maid had to look at the knight’s lips and wonder how they would feel on hers, the fluttering anticipation and delicious torture of not knowing whether he would lean for the kiss. But in those stories the maid was not supposed to kiss the knight first, and so nothing could have prepared her for the way she would feel now, panting and staring in Brienne’s eyes, her face made as lovely as the dawn by the flush of her cheeks and mussed sun-tinged hair, waiting to see if her kiss had been well received. She felt warm, as if the sun had truly broken through the walls of her cell, and her mind felt clearer than it had ever felt, irradiated with light, as if everything unclear and embellished had fallen apart and she truly understood the world for the first time.

Brienne took her hand in hers and pressed it to her lips, sharp and sudden after sitting still and shivering for so long, and a jolt went through Sansa’s spine. “My lady, I fear this is all a dream.”  
She blurted out, dropping her hand as if had stung her.

“It can be, if it would make it a happier memory for you.”

She knew there was so much poetry about stolen kisses frozen in amber, perfect moments at tourneys and balls never to be ruined by the grueling work of a courtship. But just as she thought of that her mind rebelled against it. She wanted this terribly.

“I do not know how I should think. I have not felt so happy in-”

She fell quiet, but slowly turned to look into her eyes again. She seemed so young and sweet, and Sansa felt a fierce need to comfort her shake her chest like thunder. She didn’t feel as hopeless about it as before. Everything seemed so much more possible now.

“It was wrong of me, I’ve distracted you from your reading. We have more pressing worries now than - making you listen to my woes, perhaps we should go back to the plan.”

“No, let us sleep now.” She proposed, her hand stretching out to Brienne, not quite daring to wrap around her waist and settling on her arm. “There is nothing in these books that may help me, and I feel so cold and alone.”

Brienne’s lovely eyes seemed to glisten with tears. “My lady, if you mean to bid me farewell with a jest -”

She was quiet, biting her lip. “No, pardon me, I’m talking nonsense. But if you mean to bid me farewell, I must tell you will not let you give up on your life, and even moreso now-”

She flushed again. Sansa stroked her cheek, her fingers twitching as if she was scalded at the touch of her skin. “Don’t be afraid for me, Brienne. It would be most improper for me to die when you all are going through such trouble to save me. I’ve simply been reminded of something my husband taught me.”

“Something - something about kissing?”

She laughed, not even bothering to hide it in this dark cell where no courtesy would be expected of her. “No, not at all. Something about stories. There is none in these books that will serve me well, I fear, so I will have to be smart and fast about to make my own.”

Brienne’s voice was feather-soft. “On your own, my lady?”

“No.” She played with her hand, brushing her lips against her knuckles. She hope to soothe her, and yet she jumped like a startled little girl. “I'll need to think about it more, and then I will explain it to you properly, but now all I want is your company. Let us sleep, and do not worry about putting your sword between us - I have more chastity than I have any right to jealously guard, and no will gossip about us.”

Brienne let out a strangled bark of a laugh. “You are a very exceptional woman indeed, my lady.”

Still she laid down on the straw, and when Sansa timidly reached out to hold her hand she didn’t push away.

In the morning she was close to weeping to see her go, but she had to keep herself together. Brienne believed she could be brave, and she would be. She made a drawing of a little bird - not a little dove, as the Queen had called her, not a Northern kestrel, as someone who knew nothing but her family name might, but a little parrot of the Summer Isles, with three sweeping feathers turned to the back of his head - and sent her off to seek out the man they called the Hound.

***

They came back a fortnight later, right after she had padded her mock pregnancy shift and she was lying curled in Loras’ arms, as he stroked her hair and told her the story of when Margaery had decided to dress as Ellyn Ever-Sweet for the harvest festival, and made him paint her arms and shoulders with honey so the bees of the fields would follow her.

Loras left her alone, and she was thankful for that and terrified at the same time, and soon the Sandor Clegane was before her, seeming somehow less tall and intimidating as he had seemed when she was a silly little bird, but no less scarred and scowling. She was quiet for a moment, overwhelmed by the struggle of putting into words the sort of gratitude this warranted, him coming from so far away for her sake.

Then the Hound spoke first. “I met your little sister, in the Riverlands. I tried to take her to your aunt, but she preferred running away with some outlaws than my company, just like you preferred this nest of vipers. Slippery as water, the both of you.”

She blinked, hid her face in her hands and fell on her knees sobbing, and he pressed an handkerchief to her hands like he had on the bridge that day, and the contrast of this white neat little thing with his worn travel clothes made her burst out laughing. “You - you had to console a lot of sad little girls in the war torn country, ser?”

“Still no ser, arguably less than before,” he growled, but his eyes were soft. “But I knew I would see you again, little bird.”

He sat by her side and spoke of her of Arya then, of how belligerent she had been, trying to run at every turn and refusing to pass for his daughter, but how well she had survived on her own and she had all the chances to survive still. She was in the Riverlands - so close still, when she had given her for dead and buried, and she was thirteen by now, as old as Sansa had been when they left Winterfell, and the thought of how much she must have grown up and how possible it was she would see her again stole her breath.

She wanted to ask the Hound why he had bothered to take care of her at all, with their whole family dead and no guarantee her aunt would believe a muddy, short-haired wild thing was her niece, but she felt she half-knew the answer - she knew something had softened within him when she passed through the fire of Blackwater. 

“Why did you come for me?” She asked instead, impulsively. “You were Joffrey’s guard. You know what I’ve - what I’ve participated in doing. You knew him for far more than you knew me. No one could blame you for turning away from me, even if you were a knight who had sworn to protect the innocent.”

The Hound shrugged heavily. His good eye glistened. “The boy loved me, aye, and I wanted to love him too, for a while. I almost lost a hand for snapping at the king when he knocked his teeth out when he was just a little boy following me around. But you saw how he grew up, and I was only a guard dog to him in the end.” His lips curved. “To you as well, I suppose, but dogs and wolves have their own special understanding.”

She smiled a little. “Not a little bird anymore, then?”

“I wager you can be both now.”

She embraced him in a most unladylike fashion, nestling her head against his chest. She felt him breathe deeply in shock, but his hand brushed her cheek. “I’m glad to see you again, little bird. Even if I have to fight my brother all the way to the Seven hells.”

Sansa lifted her head. “I esteem you too much to ask you to die, or to damn yourself with kinslaying. You may not care, but that only means I will have to do that for you. It’s something else I had in mind.”

The Hound scoffed, but listened as she explained her plan. “Think well of it.” She begged him in the end. “You are a free man now, you might want to choose another fate for yourself, and should your brother die without children… will you not mind your house not going to a Clegane?”

He looked at her with a look of tired mirth in his eyes. “House Clegane was founded on the blood of dogs, not men, and my father never gave me a whit of a reason to carry on his line. I always liked the bastard little mutts the most anyway.”

***

Loras raged and threatened the guards when they insisted taking her to her trial in chains, but she shushed him, bending her head in resignation. She knew every bit of dignity she insisted on now would be paid in the end.

She sat numb in her seat, barely holding onto the presence of mind to keep her hand ostentatiously on her belly, and she listened indifferently to the testimony of the bribed cook who had seen her wander around the pie and that of the chambermaid who swore she had found letters to unspecified enemies of the crown under her bed. She tried not to cry about it, and remind herself they were bribed at best and threatened at worst. 

She let herself shed a few tears at Loras’ passionate defense that it was an insult to the honor of house Tyrell to imply his wife might have plotted anything of that kind without her husband’s awareness, flinching at how much he was exposing himself for her. The septon waived the concern with a few passages of the Seven-Pointed Star on the necessity for husbands to constantly grapple with their wives’ sly nature.

No one was surprised as she was declared guilty, although her heart ached a bit in spite of herself when no one clamored at all, but at least no one objected to the idea of solving it through a trial by combat either. Distantly, she heard some girl sigh dreamily as Loras stood up ardently to volunteer as her champion and struggled to not burst out laughing.

Then Jaime Lannister stood up from the crowd. She held her breath, watching as Tywin Lannister on his seat did the same and the queen turned livid. 

“Your Majesty, while I was in Lady Stark’s captivity I made a solemn oath to return her daughters to her in change from my freedom. I accepted presuming you would not hesitate in trading a Kingsguard and your army’s most useful general for two little girls.” 

Sansa studied him, the way his assured smile didn’t spoil the penitent bow of his head, the way his hands were piously joined in his lap. She could easily imagine how he had been as a young boy taking his white cloak for the first time, and she knew everyone else must have the same impression and couldn’t help but admire him.

“I can’t keep my oath now, but at least allow me to fight as Lady Tyrell’s champion, so I might salvage what honor I have left.”

The Queen stood up from their seat. “You are ridiculous. This cannot be allowed. Which of the Kingsguard oaths allows a man to take up his sword against his sworn brothers and the interest of his own king?”

Sansa had to press her hand over her mouth. _We both know it will not be a Kingsguard you send in this battle._ But she had lost all hope that anyone in the court might notice her falsity. Brother and sister were too much alike.

“The Kingsguard swears to obey his king and obey the law.” The thin, bird-eyed septon objected, deep in thought, and Sansa thanked the Seven a thousand times that the previous one seemed to have been replaced by a man more devoted to his faith than to gold, sour as he may otherwise be. “And nothing should stop him from helping his king uphold justice and law in the realm. In a trial by combat, it is the will of the Gods that drives the sword, not his own, so there is no treason in the fight. Does the lady consent to take this man as his champion.”

“I do.” Sansa choked out with a deep bow. The terror that somehow the Queen would accept this and the plan would be ruined for good seeped to her bones; but then Cersei slammed her fist against the wood, her beautiful eyes shimmering fiercely like a wounded beast’s. 

“What of the rules of kinship, then? You are the king’s own uncle, and you were a Lannister before the Starks made you into-”

“What, my lady, a cripple?”

Sansa fidgeted nervously as the Queen screamed something back, turning away from the fiery exchange of glances between the siblings, aware much of the audience was equally uncomfortable. She had feared it might come to this. She turned her eyes to Loras’ grandmother and found some relief as she saw the serene, simple-old-lady smile that sat on her lips when she was about to snap and bite.

“Aye, your Majesty is right, for who can say if the rules of kinship come before the knight’s oaths or after or before the law but after the knight’s oaths or some other garbled way? The Queen is a paragon of honesty, but the man is the king’s uncle, and a man who wants vengeance like any other, and there’s no telling if he would lose on purpose. The girl is a simpering little chit who’d give her head to not have to see her husband in the fight, but I’m harder to fool, I.”

“Poisonous old hag, I-”

“The lady Tyrell is right there is a risk of foul play in this direction.” The septon cut off Cersei’s voice. “What does the accused say?”

Sansa gestured to rub her cheeks, for she had quite exhausted her tears to wipe and yet she felt she would have to show many more still. “My good grandmother knows better than I do about such things, your High Holiness.” 

“Then Loras Tyrell shall be the champion for his wife, if none disagree. And who does the Queen bring as a champion, on King’s Joffrey’s behalf?”

The Queen bowed her head in an affected gesture, but the tears on her cheeks were realer than her own and Sansa bit her lip bloody. “Your High Holiness, I know any of the Kingsguard brothers would happily take this honor, but my dear son was so loved by his men that I would not deny any willing knight who wished to fight on his behalf one last time. Are there any volunteers among you?”

Sansa wondered for a moment what might have happened if Sandor just volunteered before his brother had the time to, ruining the Queen’s plans and, in fact, forcing her to deny a willing knight. But the Mountain stepped forward and put all those thoughts away. 

She looked down, breathing frantically, repeating to herself the words they had been rehearsing softly and fast enough they’d look like prayers, her heart slamming against her chest. 

Then Sandor stepped forward and almost ripped a laugh from her. No one could have mistaken him for even trying to look penitent, but the scowl on his face filled her heart with tenderness all the same. “Your Grace, your Holiness, I have an objection to this champion.”

She saw Gregor Clegane snarl, and the way the Hound had to linch away from his brother’s stare even now, even when he was a grown man that had proven could defeat him, and she pressed her hands together to stop them from shaking with her guilt. _Gentle mother, font of mercy_ she was mouthing now, shoulders slouching and eyes downcast. 

“Your Grace knows I’m not in the Kingsguard anymore-”

“You never should have been, as a godless man who refused to take the holy vows of knighthood.” The septon helpfully supplied. Sansa choked a laugh in her palm at the thought Sandor may find _that_ offensive.

“I’m not in the Kingsguard anymore, but as long as I was in it I served the king faithfully and I was never one for lies and flattering shit, aye?”

“So it is, Clegane. My son trusted you over all his men.” A slight curiosity had taken the place of rage in the Queen’s eyes, and Sansa’s heart kept sinking and sinking and she wondered who she thought to be, to deserve Sandor betraying her liege of years for her sake, what a fool she was to believe all these people would protect her for the sake of protecting the innocent and how soon everything would turn against her.

“Then I will say that letting my brother fight for him you will never have justice, for now we’re both kin to lady Tyrell by marriage, and kin to little Queen Margaery too, and I don’t think any of you want to sort this bloody mess out.”

The clamoring started then, loud, angry voices overlapping as little Megga Tyrell, serene as the Maid herself stepped down from her pedestal, took her place next to her husband. “It’s true, your Grace. We were married yesterday before witnesses. Ser Clegane was so kind to ask for my hand, and my lord father thought best we not wait.” She lowered her head upon her belly pushing against her flimsy green gown, and all hell broke loose in the hall.

“This is against the law of Gods and men, have you not any respect for your King?” The Queen wailed from her seat, her wild eyes shimmering, the majesty and rage that Sansa had so admired as a silly little bird twisting like a dagger in her chest.

The septon was trying to interview the Tyrell bannermen that had been introduced as witnesses, failing to be heard over everyone else’s voices, and Margaery had decided to add her sobs to the chaos, which Sansa agreed never hurt when one had to play the part she had to play, but selfishly wished wasn’t happening right now.

“By these standards no one could be anyone’s champion.” One of the Kingsguard said to another, his half-drunk voice rising slightly above the general volume of the crowd, and in the silence it created the Queen spoke up, cold and stately again, but showing a telltale twitch to her hands. 

“You will not accept it, your Holiness. Ser Gregor would surely had informed me, as my faithful household knight, if he knew of such a marriage, and as he was unaware of this kinship, surely it cannot be any treacherous desire that motivated him to volunteer his sword.”

“Still, he knows now, and even a big slow man can change his mind as quick as he wishes.” Olenna rebuked, straining in her short stature to be seen over the crowd. “And little Megga’s my Loras’ first cousin just as true as the Kingslayer is that poor boy’s uncle, and there’s not much of a difference between an uncle and a cousin if that is true, isn’t it so?”

Sansa smiled in spite of herself at her rambling. Even at the worst of her little bird days she had not been so good at playing ditzy. 

“There is a very large difference indeed, between an uncle by blood and-”

“Oh, your Grace does not mean to imply that the oaths of marriage are less binding than blood, and in the presence of His Holiness!” Margaery rose to her feet, her pretty hazel eyes wide as saucers. “Ah, my poor husband, who will do you justice now?”

“We cannot allow any possible threat to fairness in this a trial of this importance.” The septon proclaimed, straining to be heard. “Your Grace may choose another champion from the Kinsguard’s rank, as there is no shortage of knights ready to die for their King, by the Warrior’s grace.”

The screaming and fighting resumed, Megga let out a tearful little sigh, flinching as someone almost threw her on the ground passing by her, and Sandor put his hand roughly on her shoulder, without looking at her in the eye. 

She looked at the large hulking man and the plump little maid in front of her and she thought of the songs that would be sung about their dramatic marriage - not a high and lyrical one, nothing like Queen Naerys and Aemon the Dragonknight, but they would fit in something like Florian and Jonquil so well. And then she thought of the real thing, the song she had made, where he would be an hero able to be proud of his deeds and to raise a babe with the love he had not being given, and she would be safe and happy and free of judgement, and was escorted back to her cell smiling.

***

Loras fought Osmund Kettleblack on the same tourney grounds Sansa had first seen him, the sun glinting on the swords and shields and the eyes of the entire court on them. Like then, Sansa wept when the young man she didn’t know refused to surrender and fell stabbed to the ground, and like she had done for the young knight of the Vale she prayed that his name would be remembered in the songs, and that the Seven would forgive him the dishonorable deeds his liege had ordered of him.

She also wept because the eyes of the entire court were on her too, and she had drunk the vinegar Brienne brought her and tossed dust in her hair before the guards escorted her to the trial, and she wanted people to remember how ill she looked when news of her miscarriage would spread. There was an hysterical, bitter sort of happiness in the idea that, at least, if none of the injustice that had been done to her family would be talked about aloud anytime soon, at least there would be rumors and maudlin rhymes of how the Queen had killed her babe in the womb with her needless, cruel imprisonment. A Tyrell babe was worth weeping for in their eyes too.

Margaery, in open defiance of all civility between her and the Queen Mother, begged her to stay for her wedding to little Tommen, but she cast her eyes down and mumbled something about just wanting to be home and she had to concede, though her eyes were glistening with tears. She hugged her long and hard on the way out.

She found ser Sandor waiting for her by Loras’ room when she went there to change, and she didn’t flinch when he laid his hand on his shoulder, even though it made her think of the battle of Blackwater. “Remember I am now a married man for you, little bird.”

His voice was as rough as usual, but she felt she knew him by now. “I know you could not resist aiding a young girl in dire straits.”

She thought she saw a smile lurk in the ruined corner of his lips. “Aye, for my own buggered misfortune, for I don’t know what I will do with a wife and a whelp now. I don’t think my brother would be any kinder to mine than his.”

She bit her lip. “Would you find a worthy compensation for your pains in a place as a good Tyrell household knight, never to see King’s Landing or… any other places that brought you pain again? Tommen, oh, do not be cross, doesn’t like you as much as Joffrey did, and the Queen could not prevent you from joining your wife’s household.”

He raised his eyebrow. “Be careful with your plans, little bird. I have not done all this just for you to risk treason all over again for the sake of my old hide.”  
Sansa hated that she could not deny him. Her heart felt heavy with the realization of how little had changed - of how he still just wanted to teach her how to survive against his own better judgement. “I shall try to space my treasons out, then, and wait for my husband’s victories on the field to mollify the Queen before I send for you.”

The Hound laughed his raspy laughter, strangely warm and familiar. “You’ve learned some new words, little bird, but you still fret just as much. You know damn well I never wanted any reward from you but a song.”

“There will be plenty of songs in my home,” she promised him as she clasped his hand for a farewell.

She did not find Ser Jaime, for he had already left in search of Arya, so she was astonished when Brienne came to meet her at the wheelhouse, dressed to travel and with her satchels packed, red and fumbling through her explanation. “I will go back to meet him, but we decided one of us should see you safely at home, to… to make sure we have fulfilled our oaths.”

She could feel Loras smirk by her side like an annoying pebble wedged into her foot, and Brienne must see that too, for she immediately volunteered to ride outside the wheelhouse. 

“You’re awful.” She mumbled into Loras’ ear.

“Careful with your words, or I’ll take back my champion oaths and see if you find another stay with Margie’s sweet goodmother more awful than me.”

She made a face at him. “She would have no right to take me back at all. She knew the game I would play all along and she knew I knew hers, it was her choice to not change her moves accordingly.”

Loras stroked her hair behind her ear as she nuzzled against his chest. “Did she? I wouldn't have said she expected any game from you at all by her face.”

“That’s her loss.” She closed her eyes. “She’s the one who told me the only way to people’s loyalty is by making them fear you, and I did fear her too much to contradict her. But I would not be alive now if I hadn’t made people love me instead.”

***

The oars splashed through the water rhythmically and Sansa was on the verge of falling asleep, but part of her clung to the present fiercely, leaving her wobbling on the edge. Her eyes were fixed on Brienne’s bare arms, and the thought occurred to her very clearly that she couldn’t possibly be expected to focus on her embroidery, when it was for a cloak to cover them. She entertained the idea of saying it out loud, but she knew she would blush purple, and Brienne would be so flustered she would feel guilty. She imagined herself kissing her bare shoulder instead, which she imagined would convey the same meaning well enough. Brienne had such a terrible need for her to tell her how handsome she was, one way or another. Perhaps she would really try this one, once they were out of the boat, with the excuse of slipping her half finished cloak around her shoulders - Tarth torquoise embroidered with pinking leaping fish, in her mother’s honor and to always remind Brienne of her island home. She had heard long ago, before the Targaryen conquest, kings would take lords in their service with a kiss on the lips - surely she could not be blamed for giving much-needed affection to her loyal knight.

“Ser Clegane wrote he has tracked down one of the outlaws your sister ran off with.” Brienne said thoughtfully, snapping her out of her reverie. 

“One? Have they gone separate ways? It will be so much harder to find her like this.”

Brienne leaned to stroke her cheek, shifting the oar awkwardly. “I suspected it would be that way, my- Sansa. The Riverlands are horribly ravaged, and the people are turning against one another. There is not much chance for people to band together for long.”

Sansa sighed deeply, letting her hands fall in the water to soothe herself. She was not as fierce and proud as Robb, and she accepted the humiliation of having to be on the same side of the war as the family that had destroyed hers as a price she was willing to pay for survival, and a chance at keeping her new family safe. But it hurt to know her mother’s lands were destroyed, and her poor little sister lost there without a familiar face left to turn to. She had to ask Margaery if she could do anything about it - poor little Tommen was more willing to listen than his brother, but she had to assume he also had less of a say on the war. 

“Don’t worry overmuch. He also writes your husband has gone with him to look for her, and I’m sure they’ll have more success together.”

“He did? I thought ser Jaime would go with him.”

She had supposed he would be the one less burdened with the war efforts, having lost so much of his ability to fight. But she wasn’t surprised Loras had decided to switch places. While he found the Kingslayer arrogant and unbearable in a way that was endearingly boyish, when Loras himself didn’t shine for modesty, and being around Brienne brought him still too much pain and suspicion no matter how hard he tried, he had taken a liking to the Hound very swiftly. He remembered fondly the day he had saved him from the Mountain during the melee, and even after a very short and vague version of the story of the animosity between the brothers had been explained to him, he was convinced it made him a paragon of chivalry - which did lead the Hound to not reciprocate his fondness much, but Sansa knew that was to be expected with him.

“Aye, ser Jaime was, mh, called back by his sister on some business, so Loras went instead. But it wasn’t any trouble. Some good did come of your trial in the end - not being trustworthy enough to lead an army on his own means he has a lot of time to give to this mission."

Sansa giggled, and laughed heartily at the way Brienne’s eyes lit up as if no one had ever listened to her words or laughed at her jokes as she did. She felt pleasantly intoxicated 

“I was thinking when we bring Arya home she could become your squire,” she mused out loud, feeling willing to be optimistic for once. “She would be quite older than most boys start, I think, but we can’t do everything according to the usual rules in such a situation.”

Brienne smiled ear to ear. “Do you think it would be possible?”

“I do not see why not. But you would have to pretend not to like me too much, or she’d never listen to you.” 

“That seems hard, I must admit, but I would try for the sake of the child.” Her joy made Sansa’s heart swell. She could only imagine how alone she must have felt as a little girl, when everyone in her home must have seen her dreams as strange and unnatural. She hoped this would heal that hurt at least a little. “Only, are you sure you want your reputation to be that of the lady Tyrell that unleashed a plague of lady knights upon the Seven Kingdoms?”

“I will try to live with that. It has to start somewhere, after all.”

She raised herself up to cup her cheek. “I only hope I am not keeping you away from the war more than you wish, Brienne. I don’t truly need protection here, and I would hate to keep you from honor and glory and feeling useful just for my sake when you’ve worked so hard to be allowed to fight. I’ll be busy enough with the household and Megga and the baby and-”

Brienne interrupted with a quick peck, barely brushing against her lips. She blinked, delighted by this development. It was the first time she kissed her first.

“You’re always so thoughtful, but I do not mind just… being happy for a while, for now. The war will come for us all in time. I want to enjoy all the time we can have together.”

She was flushing shamefully as if that time together was the entire stolen treasure of the Faith, but there was a determined lilt to her voice that made Sansa’s hands tingle. 

“Then I suppose there is no harm in us staying here to watch the sunset,” she suggested casually. “Turn around, I want to see how this cloak fits around the shoulders.”

They only returned to the palace in the dead of the night.


End file.
